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BELIEFS  ABOUT  THE  BIBLE 


BY 

M.    J.    SAVAGE 


Tie  BiMe  is  the  great  famUy  chronicle  of  the  /ews.^'HxOias, 


BOSTON 

GEO.  H.  ELLIS,  272  CONGRESS  STREET 

1900 


63 


Copyright 

By  Gborgb  H.  Ellis 

1883 


y  ?d~Gy 


To 


HIM  WHO  WAS  MY  BOYHOOD'S  IDEAL,  AND  TO  WHOSK 

LATER  CARE  I  OWE  THE  BEST  OF  WHAT  I 

HAVE  DONE  OR  BECOME.— 


MY  BROTHER. 


PREFACE. 


We  have  just  been  celebrating  the  four  hundredth 
anniversary  of  the  birth  of  Martin  Luther.  The  one 
thing  with  which  his  name  is  more  prominently  asso- 
ciated than  with  anything  else  is  —  for  the  Protestant 
w^orld  — the  dethronement  of  the  Pope  as  God's  vice- 
gerent on  earth,  and  the  establishment  of  the  Bible  in 
his  place.  It  is  then  a  fitting  time  for  us  to  raise  the 
question  as  to  whether  this  work  of  his  can  be  regarded 
as  a  finality.  More  important  than  any  discussion  as 
to  what  system  of  doctrine  or  church  polity  the  Bible 
may  be  interpreted  into  supporting,  is  the  deeper 
inquiry  as  to  how  we  are  to  regard  the  Bible  itself. 
This  book  is  an  attempt  to  give  a  plain  answer  to  that 
inquiry. 

Boston,  November,  1883. 


CONTENTS. 


I.    The  English  Bible, «    .    .    *  9 

II.    The  Text  and  the  Canon, 23 

III.  The  Pentateuch, 40 

IV.  The  Prophets, 

V.    The  Writings, 79 

VI.  The  Bridge  between  the  Testaments,     ...  96 

VII.    The  Epistles, in 

VIII.    The  Gospels, 126 

IX.    The  Religion  of  the  Bible, 144 

X.    The  Morality  of  the  Bible, 157 

XI.  The  Present  Use  and  Worth  of  the  Bible,  .  175 

XII.    The  Eternal  Bible, 190 


'\  B  R  A 

OP    TRK  ^ 

UNIVERSITY 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 


The  Bible  is  the  key  point  of  the  modern  theological  con- 
troversy. Whatever  theory  of  its  origin,  its  nature,  its 
authority,  shall  win  in  this  critical  contest  that  is  going  on, 
will  influence  the  thought  and  the  progress  of  the  religious 
world  for  all  future  time. 

What  kind  of  a  book  is  this  ?  Is  it  the  word  of  God  ?  Is 
it  infallible  ?  Is  it  inspired  ?  Is  it  ultimate  authority  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  God,  the  nature  of  man,  human  duty 
and  human  destiny  ?  Is  it  a  book  unique,  to  be  set  apart  in 
a  class  by  itself  ?  Is  it  unlike  all  other  productions  that  the 
world  has  ever  seen  ?  These  are  the  questions  that  need  to 
be  asked  and  that  press  for  an  answer.  How  important  they 
are  I  need  not  waste  words  in  impressing  upon  your  minds. 
If  this  book  be  indeed  in  its  entirety  the  word  of  God,  if  it 
be  infallible,  if  its  conceptions  of  the  divine  nature  and 
human  nature,  of  morality,  religion,  and  the  future  be  un- 
changing truth,  then  there  is  nothing  so  important  as  that 
we  should  know  it,  that  we  should  believe  it  heartily,  and 
that  we  should  act  upon  it  every  day  of  our  lives. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  these  claims  be  not  true,  then  the 
claim  itself  is  vicious,  mischievous,  and  injurious  to  man.  It 
stands  in  the  way  of  human  progress.  For  example,  sup- 
pose a  ship  at  sea :  the  captain  has  on  board  a  chart  which 
he  believes  to  be  perfectly  accurate  in  every  part.     He  has 


lO  Beliefs   about   the   Bible. 

a  compass,  the  needle  of  which  he  believes  to  be  always  true 
to  the  north.  If  they  be  what  he  supposes,  then  they  will 
of  course  help  him ;  and  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to 
him  that  he  should  know  it  and  believe  it.  But,  if  the  chart 
be  inaccurate,  if  the  compass  is  not  to  be  depended  on,  then 
to  trust  in  them  will  certainly  lead  him  astray,  and  maybe 
cause  disaster  and  wreck. 

Now,  then,  if  the  Bible  conception  of  God,  the  Bible  teach- 
ing concerning  his  nature,  be  true,  then  it  is  very  important 
that  we  should  know  it ;  but  if  it  be  not,  and  we  think  it  is, 
then  in  our  religious  conceptions  we  may  be  all  astray.  If 
the  Bible  teaching  concerning  human  nature,  the  origiA  of 
man,  the  origin  and  the  nature  of  sin,  be  false,  and  we  be- 
lieve and  act  upon  them  as  though  they  were  true,  then  we 
are  taking  just  that  course  which  must  stand  in  the  way  of 
an  accurate  solution  of  the  problem.  If  the  Bible  doctrine 
as  to  the  final  destiny  of  the  race  be  not  true,  and  neverthe- 
less we  bend  all  our  energies,  contribute  our  money,  time, 
and  effort  in  order  to  escape  certain  supposed  dangers  when 
those  dangers  do  not  really  exist,  we  are  not  merely  wasting 
time,  money,  and  thought,  but  we  are  leading  humanity 
by  an  entirely  false  road,  and  making  it  practically  im- 
possible for  us  to  find  out  the  real  truth  concerning  these 
all-important  problems.  He  who  believes  that  the  Bible  is 
the  infallible  word  of  God  must  of  course  hold  to  this  faith 
as  the  highest  of  all  virtues,  the  most  important  of  all  things 
in  the  world.  If,  then,  it  be  not  true,  he  is  substituting  a 
false  standard  of  right  and  wrong  for  the  true  one.  If  the 
Bible  be  infallible,  the  most  important  thing  in  the  world  is 
that  we  should  believe  it.  If  it  be  infallible,  then  to  disbe- 
lieve it  becomes  a  crime  in  our  thought.  The  use  of  reason 
is  turned  into  a  danger.  Doubt  becomes  a  sin ;  while,  if 
the   Bible  be  not  infallible,  the  highest  duty  of  man  is  to 


The  Enzlish  Bible.  II 


•^> 


doubt  it.  The  highest  duty  of  man  is  to  use  his 
reason,  is  to  find  out  what  is  the  constitution  of  human 
nature,  and  on  what  its  development  and  future  pros- 
perity depend.  I  say  then  that  to  believe  that  the  Bible  is 
infallibly  inspired,  if  it  be  not  so,  is  not  an  innocent  belief,  a 
harmless  faith.  It  is  something  that  stands  squarely  in  the 
way  of  human  progress,  more  than  anything  else  of  which  we 
can  conceive. 

We  need  then  earnestly,  simply,  without  prejudice  and 
without  passion,  to  ask  and  answer  these  grave  questions  in 
the  light  of  all  the  knowledge  and  help  that  we  can  obtain. 
In  regard  to  my  own  attitude  toward  it,  I  wish  to  say  to 
you  that  I  have  no  prejudice  against  a  revelation.  My  heart 
on  the  contrary  would  bound  and  leap  with  joy  to  meet 
and  welcome  a  revelation,  could  I  believe  that  it  were  true. 
Could  I  believe  that  God  did  speak  in  this  marvellous  way, 
with  what  eagerness  would  I  listen  to  catch  the  faintest 
utterance !  Did  I  believe  that  some  supernatural  light  might 
be  shed  down  upon  our  human  pathway  which  should  bring 
the  solution  of  our  human  problems,  over  which  brain  be- 
comes weary  and  hearts  ache,  with  what  gladness  would  I 
look  for  the  faintest  glimmer  of  a  ray  of  that  divine  light  and 
guidance !  Whatever,  then,  I  shall  say  in  the  course  of 
these  discussions,  I  beg  you  not  to  think  that  I  am  influ- 
enced in  the  slightest  degree  by  any  antagonism  toward  the 
revelation  idea  itself.  But  by  as  much  as  I  desire  light,  by 
precisely  so  much  am  I  anxious  not  to  be  deceived. 

Let  us  then,  with  these  preliminary  ideas,  take  up  the  book 
and  look  at  it,  and  see  what  it  is. 

We  find  that  it  is  called  "the  Bible,"  "  the  book" ;  and  yet, 
as  we  trace  its  history  a  little,  we  discover  that  this  title  is  a 
very  modern  one.  It  is  only  within  recent  centuries  that 
it  has  gone  by  this  name,  "  the  book,"  in  the  singular  number. 


12  Beliefs   about  the  Bible. 

It  was  called  long  before  that,  in  the  Greek,  Ta  Biblia^  "  the 
books,"  indicating  by  this  title  what  at  least  is  the  apparent 
truth, —  that  it  is  not  one  book,  but  a  little  library  brought 
together  and  made  one  by  being  put  within  the  same  limiting 
covers.  Before  it  was  called  "  the  books,"  it  was  called  "  the 
scriptures,"  or  "writings."  But  although  the  Old  Testament 
went  by  this  title,  which  indicated  that  they  were  set  apart  by 
themselves,  it  was  long  before  the  same  descriptive  and 
sacred  title  was  applied  to  the  New  Testament. 

Leaving  the  title  and  opening  the  book,  what  do  we  find  ? 
If  it  be  a  Catholic  copy  or  many  of  the  older  Protestant 
copies,  we  shall  find  three  grand  divisions,  the  Old  Testa- 
ment or  covenant,  the  Apocrypha,  and  the  New  Testament 
or  covenant ;  the  word  "  covenant "  probably  representing 
more  accurately  the  idea  of  the  original  word  than  does 
the  word  "  testament."  We  will  leave  out  of  consideration 
the  Apocrypha,  because  the  Protestants  have  always  rejected 
it,  although  the  Catholics  have  accepted  it  as  of  equal  au- 
thority with  the  other  two  divisions. 

We  find  it  not  only  divided  into  two  divisions,  but  that 
there  are  many  books,  thirty-nine  in  the  Old  Testament, 
and  twenty-seven  in  the  New,  making  a  library  of  sixty-six 
little  volumes  in  all.  Let  us  run  over  the  contents  for  a 
moment,  that  we  may  get  the  scope  of  this  work. 

At  the  beginning,  we  find  the  Pentateuch,  commonly  re- 
garded as  the  five  books  of  Moses.  They  tell  us  about  the 
creation  of  the  world,  the  origin  and  distribution  of  nations, 
the  emigrations  of  the  early  peoples,  until  at  last  God  is 
represented  as  selecting  one  and  constituting  it  his  own 
peculiar  people.  We  trace  this  people  from  its  wanderings 
from  the  far  East  through  Palestine,  until  we  find  them 
slaves  in  Egypt.  Then,  we  find  them  escaping  from  under 
the  bondage  of  the  Egyptian  kings  into  the  wilderness,  where 


The  English   Bible.  13 

they  are  supposed  to  have  wandered  forty  years.  During 
this  time,  the  statutes  of  God  are  given  them  through  the 
agency  of  Moses.  Then  come  Joshua  and  Judges,  books 
which  tell  the  story  and  the  conquest  of  Canaan,  stories  of 
the  heroes  and  the  wars  of  the  separate  tribes  before  they 
were  compacted  under  one  law  into  one  kingdom.  Then,  at 
the  end  of  this,  we  find  a  beautiful  little  poetic  idyl,  the  story 
of  Ruth,  her  faithfulness  and  love.  Next  follows  the  history 
of  the  kings,  the  various  dynasties,  the  wars  of  the  two  king- 
doms of  Judah  and  Israel  between  themselves  and  between 
them  and  the  surrounding  nations.  These  are  related  to  us 
in  the  Books  of  Samuel,  Kings,  and  Chronicles.  Then,  we 
have  the  story,  in  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  of  the  captivity  of 
the  people  in  Babylon,  their  return,  and  the  rebuilding  of 
their  beloved  temple.  Next  comes  the  story  of  Esther,  and 
the  founding  of  one  of  the  great  festivals  of  the  Jews ;  the 
attempt  of  their  persecutors  to  destroy  them,  and  the  re- 
venge wrought  on  them  by  the  permission  of  the  king. 
Now,  we  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  Job  and  that  old- 
est problem  of  the  world,  a  problem  not  yet  solved,  of 
human  suffering,  and  how  it  may  be  reconciled  with  justice 
in  the  government  of  the  world.  Passing  from  that,  we  find 
that  we  have  in  our  hands  the  hymn-book  of  the  Jews,  that 
which  they  used  in  their  temple  service,  called  the  Psalms 
of  David.  Then  come  the  Proverbs,  a  collection  of  wise 
sayings  popularly  attributed  to  Solomon.  Next,  the  little 
Book  of  Ecclesiastes,  one  of  the  darkest,  most  hopeless, 
most  pessimistic  works  that  the  religious  or  literary  world 
has  produced,  setting  forth  the  vanity  of  human  life,  the 
emptiness  of  all  things  under  the  sun.  Then  comes  a  beau- 
tiful Eastern  love-poem,  misunderstood,  perverted,  ridiculed, 
and  yet  containing  one  of  the  most  beautiful  lessons  in  all 
Scripture,  the  Song  of  Solomon.     Next,  we  are  in  the  pres- 


14  Beliefs   about  the   Bible. 

ence  of  the  prophets  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  followed  by  what 
was  supposed  to  be  Jeremiah's  lament  over  the  desolation 
of  his  people.  Then  come  Ezekiel,  Daniel,  and  the  twelve 
minor  prophets.  When  we  come  to  the  New  Testament,  we 
find  the  Four  Gospels, —  you  will  see  later  why  there  are 
four  now,  originally  there  were  many  more, —  supposed  to  be 
written  by  the  men  whose  names  they  bear ;  the  first  three 
very  much  alike  in  their  general  characteristics,  the  last  one 
standing  apart  and  constituting  a  class  by  itself.  The  Acts 
then  tell  us  about  the  history  of  the  founding  of  the  early 
Christian  Church.  Then  there  are  fourteen  letters  supposed 
to  have  been  written  by  Paul  to  these  churches,  answering 
their  questions,  solving  their  problems,  telling  how  to  order 
and  regulate  their  affairs,  advising  with  reference  to  matters 
of  doctrine  and  practice.  Next  comes  a  general  Epistle  by 
James  to  all  the  churches ;  then  two  bearing  the  name  of 
Peter,  three  bearing  the  name  of  John,  and  one  little  one 
bearing  the  name  of  Jude.  Lastly  comes  the  Apocal}^se, 
the  Revelation  of  St.  John,  wherein  is  set  forth  in  gorgeous 
strain  his  lofty  vision  of  the  supposed  course  of  human  his- 
tory, until  the  second  coming  of  Christ  and  the  revelation  of 
the  city  of  God  coming  down  out  of  heaven. 

This  is  the  book  of  which  we  are  to  treat  in  its  varied 
contents.  It  claims  to  cover  everything  from  the  creation 
of  the  world  unto  the  end  of  all  mundane  things, —  the  fold- 
ing away  of  the  heavens  like  a  scroll,  and  the  entering  in 
of  that  existence,  when,  in  the  words  of  the  angel,  "  time 
shall  be  no  more." 

Where  did  this  book  come  from.?  So  far  as  we  are  to 
consider  the  question  to-day,  it  is  a  translation.  I  shall  not 
be  able  to  cover  more  ground  this  morning  than  the  treat- 
ment of  the  English  Bible.  We  have  then  a  translation 
from  certain  Hebrew  and  Greek  manuscripts.     This  which 


The  English   Bible,  15 

we  call  the  received  text  to-day  was  not  the  first  of  the 
translations.  It  is  the  last  of  the  series,  beginning  with  the 
work  of  Tyndale,  Coverdale,  and  their  compeers,  followed 
by  the  Geneva,  the  Douay,  the  Bishops'  Bible,  and  others, 
until  at  last,  under  the  patronage  of  James  I.  of  England, 
in  161 1,  two  hundred  and  seventy-one  years  ago,  the  book 
as  we  have  it  was  published. 

I  want  to  call  your  attention  to  two  or  three  peculiarities 
of  our  English  version  before  we  go  on  to  the  theories 
which  are  held  concerning  it.  You  will  find,  as  you  open  it, 
that  it  is  divided  not  only  into  books,  but  these  books  are 
cut  up  into  chapters  and  verses.  Are  these  chapters  and 
verses  any  part  of  the  original  ?  Not  at  all.  We  need  to 
bear  this  in  mind,  because  it  is  a  matter  of  a  good  deal  of 
practical  importance  sometimes.  The  divisions  of  chapters 
and  verses  were  simply  the  work  of  the  publisher,  made  for 
mere  convenience  of  reference ;  and,  sometimes,  they  are  so 
badly  made  that  they  interfere  very  seriously  with  the 
apprehension  of  the  meaning  of  the  original  writers. 

For  example,  it  is  quite  commonly  the  case  that  the 
paragraph  or  section  is  divided  in  such  a  way  that,  in  read- 
ing one  chapter,  you  may  begin  in  the  middle  of  one  subject 
and  leave  off  in  the  middle  of  another,  thus  getting  no  idea 
of  the  matter  as  it  lay  in  the  mind  of  the  writer.  The  verse 
division  is  also  purely  arbitrary,  hardly  any  more  accurate 
than  as  though  they  were  divided  into  sections  of  half  an 
inch  in  length  without  any  regard  to  their  meaning.  I  have 
seen  many  a  time  on  the  walls  of  public  halls  and  churches 
isolated  texts  hung  up  as  mottoes,  which  not  only  do  not 
convey  the  idea  of  the  original  writer,  but  often  quite  the 
opposite.  As  one  concrete  example, —  I  speak  of  it  without 
expressing  any  convictions  I  may  have  in  connection  with 
temperance, —  I  have  seen  in  halls  the  motto,  "Touch  not. 


1 6  Beliefs  about   the  Bible. 

taste  not,  handle  not,"  as  though  God,  by  the  mouth  of 
Paul,  had  issued  that  as  a  divine  injunction.  If,  however, 
you  take  the  trouble  to  look  into  Paul's  own  writings,  you 
will  find  that  he  simply  quotes,  "Why  are  ye  subject  to 
ordinances  (touch  not,  taste  not,  handle  not,  which  all  are 
to  perish  with  the  using)  ? "  to  condemn  them.  That  is,  Paul 
says  precisely  the  opposite  of  what  he  is  made  to  say  in 
this  purely  arbitrary  use  of  the  text  detached  from  its 
surroundings. 

Not  only  this,  but  you  find  also  along  the  headings  of  the 
pages  and  at  the  beginning  of  chapters  certain  running  titles 
and  comments,  indicating  what,  according  to  tl;e  author  of 
these  titles,  is  contained  in  the  pages  and  chapters  so 
marked.  Was  this  any  part  of  the  original?  No.  This, 
again,  was  the  work  of  the  publishers ;  and,  many  a  time,  these 
headings  are  not  only  fanciful  and  imaginary,  but  grossly  in- 
correct. That  is,  they  are  really  a  process  of  interpreting 
Scripture,  turning  headings  and  indexes  into  commentaries ; 
and,  as  I  have  said,  they  are  grossly  incorrect. 

Let  us  remember  then,  as  we  handle  the  Bible,  that  the 
original  writers  are  not  responsible  for  these  headings,  any 
more  than  they  are  responsible  for  the  divisions  into  chapters 
and  verses. 

One  other  idea  must  be  borne  in  mind  in  this  connection. 
Let  us  grant  for  a  moment  that  the  original  Hebrew  and 
Greek  manuscripts  are  the  infallible  word  of  God.  Never- 
theless, as  we  open  our  English  Bible,  we  cannot  feel  that  we 
have  in  our  hands  a  verbal  transcript  of  this  infallible  work, 
because  no  one  claims  that  the  translators  were  inspired. 
We  have  only  their  judgment  as  to  what  the  original  \vriters 
meant,  put  into  the  best  English  of  which  they  had  any  prac- 
tical control.  So  that,  whatever  the  original  may  be,  the 
translation  is  not  infallible,  but  is  the  result  of  the  judgment 


The  English   Bible.  1 7 

of  fallible  men ;  and  this  is  emphasized  by  the  fact  that  no 
two  translations  are  alike,  and  that,  even  in  this  revised  ver- 
sion of  the  New  Testament  which  we  have  received  within  a 
year  or  two,  there  are  a  vast  number  of  places  where  the 
English  and  American  scholars  differed  very  seriously  as  to 
the  meaning  of  certain  words  and  phrases.  These  differ- 
ences are  so  important  that  an  appendix  has  been  added, 
containing  them.  If  you  take  up  an  American  edition,  you 
will  find  the  opinions  of  the  English  revisers  as  to  these 
points  given  in  an  appendix  by  themselves  ;  and,  if  you  take 
up  an  English  copy,  you  will  find  the  American  revisers* 
opinions  given  in  an  appendix  by  themselves.  We  must 
therefore  bear  in  mind  that  there  may  be  an  important  differ- 
ence between  the  Bible  as  first  written  and  the  Bible  as 
translated,  whatever  theory  of  the  original  may  be  held. 

Now,  then,  let  me  place  before  you,  as  clearly  as  I  can, 
some  of  the  different  theories  concerning  this  great  book 
that  have  been  held  by  the  religious  world  in  our  Protestant 
age. 

The  first  one  is  that  which  has  gone  by  the  name  of  verbal 
inspiration.  Those  who  held  to  this  theory  —  and  there  are 
some  still  who  hold  to  it  to-day,  I  suppose  —  believed  that 
every  word  as  it  appeared  in  the  original  Greek  and  Hebrew 
manuscripts  was  directly  and  definitely  inspired  by  God  j  so 
that  it  was  as  literally  God's  word  as  though  he  had  himself 
held  the  pen,  and  had  chosen  those  words  and  no  other. 
This  theory  was  carried  so  far  by  the  early  Puritan  divines 
that  some  actually  believed  that  not  only  the  words,  but  the 
punctuation  points,  were  inspired.  This  seems  something 
trivial  to  us ;  and  yet,  if  you  look  at  it  a  little,  you  will  see 
'that  it  is  an  essential  part  of  the  theory.  You  know  how 
possible  it  is  to  change  the  sense  of  a  passage  in  a  letter  or 
a  book  by  changing  the  position  of  a  comma,  a  semicolon, 


1 8  Beliefs  about   the  Bible. 

or  a  period.  Only  a  little  while  ago,  I  saw  a  famous  letter  of 
Mr.  Darwin's,  over  which  there  has  been  much  controversy 
as  to  whether  he  said  a  certain  thing  or  whether  he  said 
something  else,  the  whole  depending  on  where  you  put  the 
punctuation  mark.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  location 
of  a  comma  is  not  a  light  thing.  Indeed,  it  seems  to  me  as 
important  that  the  punctuation  should  have  been  inspired  as 
the  words ;  and  yet  I  may  have  occasion,  as  I  go  on,  to  show 
you  how  absurd  any  such  conception  as  this  must  be,  be- 
cause the  original  manuscripts,  many  of  them,  from  which 
our  version  is  taken,  contained  not  only  no  punctuation,  but 
no  division  into  chapters  or  even  paragraphs.  They  simply 
present  to  the  reader  one  solid  page,  with  no  division  into 
words  even,  and  many  times  with  only  an  abbreviation  rep- 
resenting a  word.  Whatever,  then,  may  be  true  of  the  trans- 
lation, there  were  no  punctuation  marks  in  the  originals  as 
we  have  them  ;  and  consequently,  if  they  were  definitely  and 
infallibly  inspired,  it  must  have  been  through  the  medium 
of  the  human  copyist  or  the  printer.     This  is  the  first  theory. 

The  next,  which  has  been  the  one  more  commonly  held 
in  the  Protestant  world,  and  the  one  generally  held  by  those 
who  call  themselves  strictly  evangelical,  is  plenary  inspira- 
tion, from  a  Latin  word  meaning  full  or  complete.  While 
they  would  not  stickle  for  the  very  words  or  punctuation 
marks,  they  held  and  taught,  and  still  hold  and  teach,  that 
the  human  writers  of  the  original  manuscripts  of  the  Bible 
were  so  divinely  controlled  as  to  preclude  them  from  the 
possibility  of  any  mistake,  so  that  the  Bible  in  every  part 
is  completely  true  without  any  mixture  of  error.  This  is 
the  theory  of  plenary  inspiration. 

There  is  another  theory  which  is  coming  to  be  quite 
popular,  especially  among  the  younger  men  in  the  ministry, 
those  who  are  glad  to  call  themselves  by  the  name  of  liberal 


The  English   Bible.  19 

orthodox.  It  is  the  theory  which  teaches  that,  though  the 
Bible  may  be  in  error  in  regard  to  scientific  matters,  though 
it  may  make  mistakes  as  to  historical  facts,  though  it  may 
be  wrong  in  its  figures  and  chronology,  still  it  is  true 
and  the  infallible  word  of  God,  so  far  as  concerns  its  moral 
and  religious  teaching.  That  is,  it  may  make  mistakes  in 
geology,  in  geography  and  chronology  and  history,  but  that, 
whenever  it  comes  to  teaching  anything  about  human  destiny, 
then  it  is  infallible.  That  always  seemed  to  me  a  strange 
conglomerate  of  a  theory.  Undoubtedly,  it  has  resulted 
from  the  pressure  that  has  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
modern  world  along  these  lines  of  science  and  history  and 
chronology,  a  pressure  so  severe  as  to  have  broken  down 
at  these  points  the  whole  theory  of  plenary  inspiration. 
That  is,  these  men  have  been  compelled  to  admit  that  Biblical 
science  was  wrong,  that  the  writers  were  mistaken  in  history, 
that  they  blundered  in  chronology ;  yet,  falling  back  from 
this,  they  have  taken  refuge  in  the  citadel  of  the  unknown 
and  unknowable.  They  insist  on  claiming  that  these 
writers  are  infallible  here ;  and  they  can  keep  on  doing  this, 
so  far  as  I  can  see,  as  long  as  they  please,  because  nobody 
knows  enough  about  this  matter  to  contradict  them.  They 
can  claim  that  the  Bible  is  infallible,  when  it  teaches  us 
about  the  innermost  nature  of  God,  the  future  world,  the 
need  of  forgiveness,  because  we  cannot  bring  these  partic- 
ular questions  to  any  practical  test.  This  theory,  then,  is 
one  that  holds  that  the  Bible  is  infallible  and  inspired  only  in 
those  parts  where  it  is  practically  impossible  to  bring  it  to 
any  decisive  test. 

But  there  is  still  another  one  which  has  been  popular 
among  the  old  Unitarians,  and  is  held  by  a  great  many  of 
them  to-day.  That  is,  they  would  not  put  their  finger  upon 
each  particular  thing  in  the  Bible,  and  say  that  this  is  infalli- 


1 8  Beliefs  about  the   Bible. 

or  a  period.  Only  a  little  while  ago,  I  saw  a  famous  letter  of 
Mr.  Darwin's,  over  which  there  has  been  much  controversy 
as  to  whether  he  said  a  certain  thing  or  whether  he  said 
something  else,  the  whole  depending  on  where  you  put  the 
punctuation  mark.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  location 
of  a  comma  is  not  a  light  thing.  Indeed,  it  seems  to  me  as 
important  that  the  punctuation  should  have  been  inspired  as 
the  words ;  and  yet  I  may  have  occasion,  as  I  go  on,  to  show 
you  how  absurd  any  such  conception  as  this  must  be,  be- 
cause the  original  manuscripts,  many  of  them,  from  which 
our  version  is  taken,  contained  not  only  no  punctuation,  but 
no  division  into  chapters  or  even  paragraphs.  They  simply 
present  to  the  reader  one  solid  page,  with  no  division  into 
words  even,  and  many  times  with  only  an  abbreviation  rep- 
resenting a  word.  Whatever,  then,  may  be  true  of  the  trans- 
lation, there  were  no  punctuation  marks  in  the  originals  as 
we  have  them  ;  and  consequently,  if  they  were  definitely  and 
infallibly  inspired,  it  must  have  been  through  the  medium 
of  the  human  copyist  or  the  printer.     This  is  the  first  theory. 

The  next,  which  has  been  the  one  more  commonly  held 
in  the  Protestant  world,  and  the  one  generally  held  by  those 
who  call  themselves  strictly  evangelical,  is  plenary  inspira- 
tion, from  a  Latin  word  meaning  full  or  complete.  While 
they  would  not  stickle  for  the  very  words  or  punctuation 
marks,  they  held  and  taught,  and  still  hold  and  teach,  that 
the  human  writers  of  the  original  manuscripts  of  the  Bible 
were  so  divinely  controlled  as  to  preclude  them  from  the 
possibility  of  any  mistake,  so  that  the  Bible  in  every  part 
is  completely  true  without  any  mixture  of  error.  This  is 
the  theory  of  plenary  inspiration. 

There  is  another  theory  which  is  coming  to  be  quite 
popular,  especially  among  the  younger  men  in  the  ministry, 
those  who  are  glad  to  call  themselves  by  the  name  of  liberal 


The  English   Bible.     '  19 

orthodox.  It  is  the  theory  which  teaches  that,  though  the 
Bible  may  be  in  error  in  regard  to  scientific  matters,  though 
it  may  make  mistakes  as  to  historical  facts,  though  it  may 
be  wrong  in  its  figures  and  chronology,  still  it  is  true 
and  the  infallible  word  of  God,  so  far  as  concerns  its  moral 
and  religious  teaching.  That  is,  it  may  make  mistakes  in 
geology,  in  geography  and  chronology  and  history,  but  that, 
whenever  it  comes  to  teaching  anything  about  human  destiny, 
then  it  is  infallible.  That  always  seemed  to  me  a  strange 
conglomerate  of  a  theory.  Undoubtedly,  it  has  resulted 
from  the  pressure  that  has  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
modern  world  along  these  lines  of  science  and  history  and 
chronology,  a  pressure  so  severe  as  to  have  broken  down 
at  these  points  the  whole  theory  of  plenary  inspiration. 
That  is,  these  men  have  been  compelled  to  admit  that  Biblical 
science  was  wrong,  that  the  writers  were  mistaken  in  history, 
that  they  blundered  in  chronology ;  yet,  falling  back  from 
this,  they  have  taken  refuge  in  the  citadel  of  the  unknown 
and  unknowable.  They  insist  on  claiming  that  these 
writers  are  infallible  here ;  and  they  can  keep  on  doing  this, 
so  far  as  I  can  see,  as  long  as  they  please,  because  nobody 
knows  enough  about  this  matter  to  contradict  them.  They 
can  claim  that  the  Bible  is  infallible,  when  it  teaches  us 
about  the  innermost  nature  of  God,  the  future  world,  the 
need  of  forgiveness,  because  we  cannot  bring  these  partic- 
ular questions  to  any  practical  test.  This  theory,  then,  is 
one  that  holds  that  the  Bible  is  infallible  and  inspired  only  in 
those  parts  where  it  is  practically  impossible  to  bring  it  to 
any  decisive  test. 

But  there  is  still  another  one  which  has  been  popular 
among  the  old  Unitarians,  and  is  held  by  a  great  many  of 
them  to-day.  That  is,  they  would  not  put  their  finger  upon 
each  particular  thing  in  the  Bible,  and  say  that  this  is  infalli- 


22  Beliefs  about   the   Bible. 

commonly  used  in  the  shape  in  which  it  is  held  at  the  pres- 
ent time.  A  concession  to  a  part  of  this  theory  was  made 
recently  by  Dr.  R.  Heber  Newton,  a  brilliant  Episcopal  min- 
ister, who  is  reported  in  the  New  York  Herald  to  have  said 
that  the  Bible,  in  its  entirety,  ought  not  to  be  publicly  circu- 
lated, that  there  should  be  at  least  a  selected  or  expurgated 
edition  published  before  it  is  spread  broadcast  over  the  world. 
These,  then,  are  the  different  theories  concerning  this  book, 
of  which  I  have  given  you  this  general  account.  It  is  not 
my  purpose  to  pursue  the  subject  further  to-day.  As  to  what 
we  are  to  think  of  it,  how  it  originated,  who  wrote  it,  when, 
where,  what  influence  it  has  had  on  the  world,  and  what 
influences  we  may  expect  it  to  have  still, —  these  questions 
will  be  the  subject  of  future  discourses. 


THE  TEXT  AND  THE  CANON. 


A  LADY  present  in  my  audience  last  Sunday  morning 
(I  hope  she  was  not  one  of  my  regular  hearers,  because  I 
should  be  sorry  to  be  so  misunderstood  and  misinterpreted 
by  one  hearing  me  constantly)  was  overheard  to  remark 
that  she  did  not  see  any  use  in  Mr.  Savage's  attacking  the 
Bible,  a  book  that  had  done  so  much  good  in  the  world, 
whatever  the  truth  about  it  might  be.  This  may  represent 
the  attitude  of  more  than  one ;  and,  for  this  reason,  I  wish 
to  make  one  or  two  remarks  concerning  it. 

In  the  first  place,  I  am  only  telling  the  simple  truth  about 
the  Bible ;  and  it  seems  to  me  a  most  damaging  admission 
for  any  one  to  make  concerning  a  man,  an  institution,  or  a 
book,  that  telling  the  truth  about  him  or  it  is  attacking  it. 
In  the  next  place,  we  need  to  draw  a  very  clear-cut  line,  or 
distinction,  between  the  Bible  and  the  theories  that  have 
been  held  or  taught  concerning  it.  If  you  will  notice,  I 
think  you  will  bear  me  witness  that  I  have  never  attacked 
the  Bible ;  and  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  do  so  in  this  course  of 
sermons.  I  only  attack  what  I  regard  as  certain  false,  un- 
founded, vicious  theories  involved  in  the  claims  put  forth  on 
its  behalf,  which  it  has  never  put  forth,  and  has  never  at- 
tempted to  sustain.  In  the  third  place,  we  need  to  remem- 
ber that  theories  and  beliefs  concerning  God,  concerning 
Bibles,  concerning  institutions  of  one  kind  or  another,  may 
have  been  really  helpful  to  man  in  some  stage  of  his  prog- 
ress; and  yet  these  same  beliefs  and  theories  may  afterward 


24  Biliefs   about   the  Bible. 

come  to  be  hindrances  that  stand  in  the  way  of  his  further 
advance.  So  much  by  way  of  comment  on  this  t)rpe  of 
criticism. 

Last  Sunday  morning,  I  treated  of  the  English  Bible,  its 
contents,  its  divisions,  natural  and  artificial,  and  the  theories 
that  have  been  held  in  the  past,  and  are  now  currently  held 
concerning  it.  In  so  doing,  I  took  note  of  the  well-known 
fact  that  this  English  Bible  of  ours  is  a  translation  from  an 
earlier  literature  ;  and  I  called  your  attention  to  this  some- 
what important  point,  that,  even  though  the  originals  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  may  have  been  infallible  and  in- 
spired, we  cannot  claim  that  we  have  now  a  book  which  is  thus 
infallible  and  inspired,  unless  we  know  that  the  translators 
were  divinely  assisted  in  their  work  ;  and  this  no  man  that  I 
have  heard  of  has  ever  put  forth  as  a  sober  claim.  But, 
even  though  we  knew  that  the  Old  and  New  Testament 
manuscripts  were  originally  infallible  and  inspired,  we  should 
not  be  sure  that  those  copies  that  the  translators  used  pos- 
sessed these  characteristics,  unless  we  could  be  certain  that 
we  have  in  our  present  copies  just  those  books,  and  no  more, 
that  were  in  the  first  place  rendered  infallible,  and  unless 
we  could  be  perfectly  sure  that  they  had  come  down  to  us 
through  the  ages  unchanged  in  every  essential  feature.  But, 
again,  though  we  knew  that  the  manuscripts  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  had  never  been  changed,  though  we  could 
be  sure  that  the  translators  had  a  copy  that  had  never 
been  varied  by  a  phrase  or  a  sentence  or  a  word  or  a  letter, 
we  should  not  then  be  certain  that  the  book  was  infallible 
and  inspired.  We  should  need  to  go  back  and  find  out 
where  this  original  came  from,  and  what  credentials  it 
brought  with  it  when  it  came.  That  is  further  back  than  we 
shall  be  able  to  go  this  morning,  and  I  shall  confine  myself 
to  considering  the  text  and  the  canon. 


The    Text  and  tJie  Canon.  25 

As  we  go  one  step  back  of  our  English  Bible,  what  do  we 
find  ?  Do  we  find  some  one  copy  containing  just  the  books 
of  our  present  Bible,  no  more,  no  less?  Do  we  find  that 
this  Bible  has  been  transmitted  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion without  any  changes  or  any  mistakes?  Instead  of 
that,  we  find  the  truth  to  be  almost  as  far  the  other  way  as 
you  can  conceive  or  imagine.  As  there  are  some  special 
points  that  I  wish  to  bring  before  you  concerning  the  manu- 
scripts of  the  Old  Testament,  I  shall  treat  first  of  those  of 
the  New. 

We  have  in  the  world  a  collection,  not  in  any  one  place, 
but  in  all,  of  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of  seventeen 
hundred  New  Testament  manuscripts.  Sometimes  a  manu- 
script is  complete,  containing  all  the  books,  sometimes  con- 
taining certain  books  not  at  present  admitted.  In  other 
cases,  the  manuscript  covers  only  a  fragment  or  one  book  or 
even  a  part  of  a  book.  Are  these  all  alike?  Does  there 
seem  to  have  been  any  supernatural  supervision  exercised 
in  making  these  copies,  to  keep  out  any  error  or  mistake  ? 
Does  there  seem  to  have  been  even  ordinary  human  care 
exercised  to  prevent  the  intrusion  of  any  errors  ?  You  cawi 
judge  for  yourself,  when  I  tell  you  that,  within  the  range  of 
these  seventeen  hundred  manuscripts,  there  are  somewhere 
in  the  neighborhood  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  vari- 
ous readings.  It  is  only  just  to  say,  of  course,  that  the 
larger  part  of  these  variations  are  minute,  not  touching  mat- 
ters of  great  importance,  sometimes  only  a  difference  in  the 
spelling  of  a  word,  sometimes  a  difference  in  the  word  itself, 
sometimes  a  difference  in  a  phrase ;  but  some  of  them  are 
important  enough  to  extend  to  even  whole  paragraphs  and 
parts  of  chapters,  so  that  many  of  these  variations  are  very 
important  indeed. 

Prof.  George  P.  Fisher,  of    Yale  Theological   Seminary, 


26  Beliefs   about  the   Bible. 

one  of  the  leading  orthodox  scholars,  in  an  article  published 
last  summer  in  the  North  American  Review^  touching  this 
matter  of  the  various  readings  in  the  manuscripts,  has  sought 
to  avoid  the  force  of  this  very  important  point  by  saying  that 
these  manuscripts  are  probably  nearly,  if  not  quite,  as 
accurate  as  those  we  have  of  Plato,  of  Aristotle,  or  of  the 
Commentaries  of  Caesar;  that  we  do  not  feel  any  special 
doubt  as  to  the  teachings  of  Plato  or  Aristotle  or  Caesar  on 
account  of  the  variations  in  manuscripts,  and  we  ought  not 
any  more  to  feel  anxiety  or  trouble  about  the  New  Testament 
variations.  But  there  is  a  very  marked  distinction  between 
the  two  cases,  and  one  that  an  acute  scholar  like  iProf. 
Fisher  certainly  ought  not  to  have  overlooked.  No  one 
claims  that  your  life  and  mine  for  this  world,  much  less  our 
eternal  destiny  for  heaven  or  hell  in  the  next  world,  depends 
on  the  accuracy  of  a  reading  in  Plato  or  Aristotle  or  Caesar's 
Commentaries.  If  some  great  Church  should  turn  one  of 
these  books  into  its  Bible,  and  make  human  destiny  hinge 
on  the  accuracy  of  the  phrases  of  Plato  or  Aristotle,  you 
would  then  see  that  the  world  would  rouse  and  wake  up 
in  its  interest  as  to  whether  we  could  be  certain  that  these 
readings  had  come  down  uncorrupted  from  the  past.  There 
is  no  justice  then  in  making  any  such  comparison  as  this. 
The  point  we  wish  to  know  is  whether  we  can  be  so  certain 
as  to  the  phrases,  the  wording,  the  literal  teaching  of  this 
book,  called  the  New  Testament,  that  any  body  of  men 
has  a  right  to  build  a  world-wide  doctrine,  and  make  the 
eternal  peace  or  the  misery  of  men  depend  on  the  reading 
of  a  text. 

It  is  thus  a  question  of  very  great  importance  for  us  to 
find  out  whether  a  book,  on  whose  behalf  such  extraordinary 
claims  are  made,  has  come  down  to  us  accurately  as  it  was 
written   by  its   authors.     1   have   said,  however,  that   there 


The    Text  and  the   Canon.  2/ 

are  some  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  different  readings 
in  its  manuscripts.  How  can  we  account  for  them  ?  Under 
what  influences  have  they  come  to  exist  ?  Under  the  most 
natural  ones  in  the  world.  If  we  consider  the  New  Testa- 
ment as  simply  a  human  production,  it  is  not  strange  that 
we  should  have  these  different  readings,  changes  of  texts, 
misunderstandings,  misinterpretations.  Every  scholar  knows 
that,  concerning  Shakspere  for  example,  there  are  thousands 
and  thousands  of  different  readings,  over  which  the  critics 
speculate  and  study.  But  it  does  not  arouse  any  general 
interest  in  the  world,  because  it  is  of  no  practical  importance 
to  man  whether  Shakspere  used  this  particular  word  in  this 
particular  place  or  that.  No  question  of  human  destiny 
hinges  on  it.     It  is  merely  a  matter  of  literary  curiosity. 

These  changes  then  have  come  about  in  the  most  natural 
way.  In  the  first  place,  through  the  blunders  of  copyists. 
You  are  aware  that  printing  is  quite  a  modern  invention  ;  and 
that  these  manuscripts  were  written  by  hand,  by  the  monks 
and  students  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  in  the  early  ages  of 
Christianity.  If  you  have  had  a  letter  copied  by  the  hands 
of  a  clerk,  or  if  you  have  ever  attempted  to  do  any  copying 
yourself,  you  know  how  easy  it  is  to  leave  out  or  misspell  a 
word  or  to  substitute  a  wrong  one  or  to  make  any  one  of  a 
dozen  common  errors  in  copying  a  piece  of  work.  Here  is 
the  source  of  a  great  many  of  them.  Another  rises  from 
the  fact  that  it  was  quite  a  common  thing  for  the  various 
makers  of  manuscripts  to  write  in  the  margin  of  the  book,  or 
at  the  foot  of  the  page,  various  little  notes  and  comments ; 
to  suggest  one  word  for  another  where  they  thought  some 
previous  copyist  might  have  made  a  mistake.  When  a  new 
copy  was  to  be  made,  the  man  who  was  engaged  in  doing  it 
would  wonder  a  great  many  times  whether  these  notes  in  the 
margin  ought  to  be  a  part  of  the  text,  something  that  the 


28  Beliefs  about  the   Bible. 

previous  copyist  had  left  out ;  and,  thinking  they  ought,  he 
would  incorporate  them  into  the  text  itself.  A  great  many 
changes,  doubtless,  came  about  in  this  way.  If  you  remem- 
ber that  these  Greek  manuscripts  generally  were  not  divided 
into  verses  and  paragraphs,  but  that  they  were  written  solid, 
you  will  see  how  easy  it  was  for  errors  of  one  kind  or  an- 
other to  spring  up  in  this  way.  If,  for  example,  I  should 
send  you  a  manuscript  to-day  without  any  division  of  para- 
graphs, sentences,  or  even  of  words,  as  some  are  written,  all 
the  letters  about  the  same  distance  apart,  and  the  whole 
page  solid,  the  chances  would  be  a  hundred  to  one  against 
your  making  me  an  accurate  copy,  putting  in  the  punctuation 
where  I  intended  it  to  be,  dividing  the  sentences  into  words 
as  I  had  them  in  my  mind,  and  so  giving  an  accurate  tran- 
script of  the  whole. 

There  is  another  source  of  error  still  that  has  sprung  out 
of  the  doctrinal  bias  of  the  copyist  himself.  Deliberate  lib- 
erties were  taken  a  great  many  times  by  the  copyist,  in  im- 
proving the  text,  as  he  supposed,  leaving  out  a  word  that  he 
did  not  like,  or  inserting  one  that  he  did.  As  in  that  great 
warfare  that  waged  in  the  early  Church  between  the  Arians 
and  Athanasians,  between  those  who  believed  in  the  new  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  and  between  those  who  fought  against  it, 
how  natural  it  would  be  for  a  copyist  to  change  a  phrase 
this  way  or  that,  either  on  one  side  or  the  other,  softening 
it  down  a  little,  so  that  it  would  not  bear  so  emphatically 
against  the  doctrine  which  he  really  believed  to  be  true ! 
A  great  many  times  these  men  might  honestly  make  these 
changes,  feeling  so  sure  that  they  had  the  right  interpretation 
that  only  good  could  come  from  their  amending  the  text  a 
little,  so  that  it  should  be  impossible  for  the  careless  reader 
to  misunderstand  it. 

Again,  we   must  remember  that  the  standard  of   literary 


The    Text  and  the  Canon.  29 

ethics  then  was  very  different  from  the  modern  standard. 
To-day,  we  call  a  man  a  plagiarist,  we  convict  him  of  literary 
theft,  and  he  would  be  publicly  disgraced,  were  he  capable 
of  writing  books  in  such  a  way  as  these  early  workers  were 
accustomed,  as  a  common  thing,  to  do.  For  example,  it  was 
a  very  common  thing,  during  the  first  four  or  five  hundred 
years  before  Christ  and  three  or  four  hundred  years  after, — 
yes,  seven  or  eight  hundred  years  after, —  it  was  quite  a 
common  thing  for  them  to  take  the  work  of  earlier  writers 
in  composing  a  book  of  their  own,  to  borrow  here  and  there 
such  material  from  those  books  as  they  cared  to  use,  and 
to  incorporate  it  bodily  into  their  own  work,  adding  and 
changing  here  and  there  as  they  pleased,  patching  and  piec- 
ing in  such  a  way  that  only  a  critic  could  detect  the  way  in 
which  it  had  been  done.  Work  of  this  sort  can  be  traced 
in  the  manufacture  of  some  of  the  manuscripts  both  of  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  New. 

Not  only  that,  but  it  was  not  at  all  uncommon  for  writers 
at  this  time  to  do  another  thing  which  our  standard  of  lit- 
erary honesty  would  most  severely  condemn ;  and  that  is  to 
put  into  the  mouth  of  the  speaker  not  the  words  which  he 
really  used,  but  such  words,  even  extending  sometimes  to 
long  speeches,  as  they  supposed  he  would  have  used,  or 
might  properly  have  used,  on  such  and  such  an  occasion. 
Let  me  indicate  to  you  how  recently  work  of  this  kind  has 
been  done.  In  some  of  our  modern  school-books  there  are 
speeches  or  orations,  supposed  to  have  been  delivered  in 
Parliament  by  celebrated  orators,  which  everybody  knows 
were  never  delivered  at  all.  There  were  no  reporters  at 
the  time  the  speeches  were  made.  The  way  in  which  the 
speeches  were  prepared  was  for  some  good  writer,  who  knew 
that  such  a  speech  had  been  made  at  such  a  time,  to  write 
out  what  might  have  been  said  on   that  occasion  by  that 


30  Beliefs   about  the   Bible. 

speaker;  and  it  passes  in  the  modern  world  as  the  real 
speech.  Sometimes,  a  thing  of  that  sort  is  done  by  a  smart 
reporter  now.  I  was  told  not  a  great  while  ago  by  a  prom- 
inent newspaper  man  at  the  head  of  a  leading  paper  that  he 
had  sometimes  been  obliged  to  report  the  speeches  of  pol- 
iticians, when  he  could  not  get  near  enough  to  hear  more 
than  now  and  then  a  word.  Yet  he  must  produce  a  speech. 
So  he  caught  at  this  and  that,  as  best  he  could ;  and,  know- 
ing the  general  sentiment  of  the  speaker,  he  would  write  out 
as  nearly  as  possible  what  he  might  be  presumed  to  say. 
And,  once,  he  did  his  work  so  well  that  he  received  a  per- 
sonal letter  with  the  thanks  of  the  orator.  He  probably 
wrote  out  as  good  a  speech  as  the  speaker  made,  even  if  it 
was  not  just  the  one  that  he  did  make. 

To  go  back  to  more  ancient  times,  you  are  accustomed 
to  find  facts  like  these  in  the  works  of  Thucydides,  Xeno- 
phon,  and  Plato.  Thucydides  and  Xenophon  put  into  the 
mouths  of  military  leaders  speeches  that  they  made  to 
the  soldiers  on  the  eve  of  such  and  such  a  battle.  But 
every  one  knows  perfectly  well  that  the  writers  are  only 
putting  into  the  mouths  of  their  heroes  the  speeches  which 
they  might  have  made,  or  which  would  have  been  fitting 
to  make,  not  the  actual  words  that  they  used.  If  you  take 
up  the  Dialogues  of  Plato,  you  find  long  utterances  of 
Socrates ;  but  Plato  does  not  claim  to  make  a  verbal  report 
of  Socrates'  words.  He  represents  the  general  position  of 
Socrates  on  these  subjects;  and  he  puts  into  his  mouth 
words  which  are  not  the  words  of  Socrates  at  all,  but  which 
are  the  words  of  Plato.  This  is  very  well,  if  it  is  fully 
understood.  But,  when  we  know  that  this  may  have  been 
done  in  the  case  of  Jesus,  and  that,  in  all  probability,  it  was 
done  by  the  writer  of  the  Gospel  of  John,  when  he  puts 
long  prayers  and  speeches  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus,  which  are 


The   Text  and  the  Cano7i.  31 

entirely  unlike  that  which  the  other  three  gospel  writers  give ; 
when  we  are  taught  to  believe  that  our  eternal  destiny- 
hinges  on  the  accuracy  of  these  reports,  it  becomes  impor- 
tant that  we  should  know  the  character  of  the  literary  ethics 
which  underlie  this  work,  to  know  how  they  are  produced, 
and  how  much  weight  and  authority  they  carry  with  them. 

Not  only  this,  but,  to  go  a  step  farther,  not  only  did  they 
incorporate  the  works  of  other  writers,  and  put  into  the 
mouths  of  speakers  and  hearers  that  which  they  did  not 
say,  but  that  which  they  might  have  said ;  but  they  went  to 
the  extent  of  creating  and  producing  whole  books  under  the 
influence  of  a  doctrinal  bias,  and  for  the  purpose  of  carrying 
this  or  that  belief  through  the  public  mind,  and  making  it 
dominant  in  the  religious  circles  of  their  time,  which  were 
outright  forgeries.  We  should  call  them  forgeries  to-day, 
although  it  is  a  serious  question  whether  we  ought  to  hold 
the  writers  guilty,  as  we  should  in  the  nineteenth  century* 
Such  writing  was  not  looked  upon  then  as  it  is  now.  If  a 
man  felt  that  he  was  serving  a  good  purpose,  that  he  was 
helping  on  right  thought,  he  considered  himself  justified  in 
doing  this  kind  of  work.  There  are  books  extant  to-day 
that  came  very  near  being  incorporated  into  the  Bible  ;  and 
it  is  quite  possible  that  such  books  were  incorporated,  books 
which  were  written  two  or  three  hundred  years  perhaps  after 
the  time  of  their  supposed  author,  and  were  published  with 
the  names  of  some  old  saint  or  hero  attached  to  them,  that 
they  might  gain  currency  and  authority  in  the  great  religious 
discussions  of  the  time.  We  must  remember  these  things, 
when  we  take  up  the  question  as  to  the  accuracy  and  authen- 
ticity of  the  manuscripts  that  have  come  to  be  part  of  our 
modern  Bible. 

Let  me  pass  now  to  the  manuscripts  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment.    I  wish  to  say  of  them  in  general  that  all  these  things. 


32  Beliefs  about  the  Bible, 

which  I  have  said  concerning  the  New  Testament  will  hold 
equally  with  them,  so  that  I  need  not  repeat  them.  I  only 
wish  to  call  your  attention  to  one  or  two  peculiar  facts 
which  bear  upon  the  question  of  their  accuracy.  You  are 
aware,  perhaps,  that  the  Hebrew  language,  as  originally 
written,  was  made  up  entirely  of  consonants ;  that  is,  the 
Hebrew  word  as  written  or  printed  has  no  vowels  at  all.  It 
was  quite  commonly  the  case  that  precisely  the  same  word 
as  it  appeared  on  the  written  manuscript  or  printed  page 
would  have  this  meaning  or  that,  according  to  the  vowels 
which  were  understood  to  go  along  with  the  consonants 
thus  written  or  printed.  To  give  you  a  very  commonplace 
example,  suppose  that  English  were  printed  without  any 
vowels,  and  you  should  find  the  two  consonants,  b,  n,  you 
would  see  that  it  might  mean  bane,  bone,  bean,  or  been, 
or  half  a  dozen  other  things,  according  to  the  vowels  which 
should  be  combined  with  these  two  consonants  to  complete 
the  word. 

There  are  cases  in  the  Bible  where  precisely  this  kind  of 
liability  to  error  occurs.  As  a  practical  illustration,  Prof. 
Robertson  Smith  tells  us  that,  in  one  passage,  Jacob  is  rep- 
resented as  uttering  his  dying  prophecies  and  farewell  words 
to  his  sons  while  leaning  upon  his  bed.  Another  passage, 
that  refers  to  the  same  scene,  says  that  he  did  it  leaning 
upon  his  staff.  This  is  easy  of  explanation,  when  we  know 
that  the  two  words  in  Hebrew  for  bed  and  staff  are  precisely 
alike  in  their  consonants,  and  may  be  made  to  mean  one  or 
the  other  according  to  the  vowels  added.  Of  course,  you 
can  see  what  a  wide  field  for  misconception  and  error  there 
is  open  here.  It  is  long  since  the  time  of  Christ,  some- 
where between  the  sixth  and  ninth  centuries,  that  the  system 
of  vowel  points  was  generally  adopted,  so  that  the  reading 
of  the  Hebrew  text  was  settled  beyond  controversy. 


The   Text  and  the  Canon.  33 

Now,  then,  without  spending  more  time  on  the  actual  or 
possible  sources  of  error  in  the  manuscripts,  let  me  say  a 
few  words  in  regard  to  the  formation  of  the  canon.  As  I 
have  often  said,  if  we  were  sure  that  we  had  an  accurate 
copy  of  the  original  text,  we  should  even  then  need  to  be 
sure  that  we  had  just  those  books  which  ought  to  be  included 
in  this  collection  that  we  call  the  Bible ;  and  we  should  also 
need  to  know  when  this  collection  was  settled,  and  under 
what  influences.  It  is  a  very  common  opinion  that  the  Old 
Testament  canon  was  settled  at  least  by  the  time  of  Christ ; 
yet  this  is  far  from  having  been  the  case.  About  the  time 
of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  the  time  of  the  return  from  the  Jew- 
ish captivity,  the  Pentateuch  was  about  as  it  stands  to-day. 
But  long  after  that  time,  away  down  to  the  time  of  Christ, 
and  for  nearly  a  hundred  years  after  that,  the  canon  of  the 
Old  Testament  remained  open ;  and  it  was  still  a  question 
which  books  should  be  included,  and  which  shut  out. 

Under  what  influences  was  the  canon  settled  ^t  last? 
Was  there  any  criticism,  any  special  scholarship  brought  to 
bear  upon  it?  None  whatever.  We  can  have  no  sort  of 
intellectual  respect  for  the  decisive  influences  which  at  last 
fixed  for  all  time  the  canon  of  the  Old  Testament  scriptures. 
There  came  to  be  an  exaggerated,  superstitious  reverence 
for  the  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  mind ;  and  it  was  carried 
so  far  that  they  believed  there  was  some  wondrous,  super- 
natural, almost  magical  significance  that  might  be  discovered 
in  every  word  and  phrase  and  letter.  It  became  a  matter  of 
the  utmost  importance  to  them,  holding  this  belief,  that  they 
should  be  able  to  know  what  words  and  letters  really  were 
to  be  considered  part  of  the  Old  Testament  scriptures ;  and 
so  there  was  an  arbitrary  selection  made  by  the  rabbins, 
who  determined  what  particular  text  should  be  regarded  as 
the  true  scripture.     After  this    there  was   a  persistent  at- 


34  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

tempt  made,  and  it  was  very  successful,  to  suppress  every 
other  copy,  and  all  variations  from  this,  which  they  had  de- 
termined should  be  the  accepted  reading.  It  was  even 
taught  that  it  was  a  dangerous,  a  fatal  sin  to  read  or  have 
to  do  with  any  other  copies.  It  therefore  became  a  part  of 
the  Jews'  religion  to  accept  a  certain  text  and  no  other ;  and 
so  slavish  was  the  fear  induced  in  connection  with  this  that 
the  copyist  of  the  Old  Testament  books  from  that  time 
copied  everything,  even  to  the  erasures  and  blots  on  the 
page,  .not  daring  to  depart  by  a  hair's  breadth  from  anything 
which  he  found  in  the  manuscript. 

The  Jewish  canon,  then,  was  settled  under  the  influence  of 
the  rabbins  toward  the  last  part  of  the  first  century.  The 
question  whether  Esther,  Ecclesiastes,  the  Song  of  Solomon ; 
or  Ecclesiasticus,  the  Maccabees,  and  others  which  now  con- 
stitute part  of  the  Apocrypha,  should  be  included  or  not, 
was  suddenly  stopped  by  the  destruction  of  the  temple, 
which  put   an  end   to   the  growth  of  the  Old   Testament. 

Thus,  without  any  trace  of  superhuman  guidance,  was  the 
canon  of  the  Old  Testament  finally  settled.  And,  in  my 
opinion,  some  of  the  books  which  were  left  out  are  more 
worthy  to  be  there  than  some  admitted  ;  and  I  believe  that 
they  would  have  been  admitted,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
sudden  and  violent  ending  of  the  Jewish  nationality.  Every- 
thing old  was  looked  at  through  the  haze  and  glamour  of 
supernaturalism.  Everything  was  idealized;  and  everything 
modern,  as  it  is  to-day  with  us,  was  regarded  as  common, 
and  not  having  about  it  any  of  those  supernatural  qualities. 

Now  as  to  the  settlement  of  the  New  Testament  canon.  A 
large  number  of  books  which  have  not  come  down  to  the  mod- 
ern world  formerly  existed,  and  stood  their  chances  of  becom- 
ing Christian  scriptures  in  the  early  centuries  of  the  Church. 
There  was  a  very  large  number  of  gospels,   a  great   many 


The  Text  and  the   Canon.  35 

epistles,  and  numerous  apocalypses,  or  revelations.  Under 
what  kind  of  influences  and  at  what  time  was  it  settled 
what  should  be  received  as  Scripture,  and  what  not  ?  For 
the  first  hundred  or  two  years,  when  the  Old  Testament 
was  regarded  as  sacred  scripture  and  treated  and  spoken  of 
as  such,  there  was  no  such  feeling  for  any  written  books 
of  the  New  Testament,  because  it  was  the  universal  belief 
of  the  whole  body  of  the  Church  that  Jesus,  after  a  few 
years  at  the  most,  was  to  return  again  from  the  skies,  and 
establish  the  visible  kingdom  of  God  upon  earth.  In  the 
face  of  an  expectation  like  that,  what  was  the  use  of  writ- 
ten books }  It  was  only  after  this  dream  had  faded  away 
that  the  Gospels  were  composed.  The  Epistles  of  Paul  were 
written  before,  to  meet  important  cases  of  necessity  and 
to  answer  questions  arising  at  the  time ;  but  Paul  had  prob- 
ably no  idea  that  there  would  ever  be  any  controversy  as 
to  whether  his  doctrines  were  the  absolute  truth  or  not.  A 
large  number  of  the  books  were  written  after  this  dream  had 
faded  away,  and  they  felt  the  necessity  of  having  some 
present  guidance.  And  as  it  seemed  a  long  time  since 
Jesus  had  disappeared  in  the  heavens,  since  the  apostles  had 
become  memories  and  ideals, —  as  it  became  a  wonder  for 
some  old  man  to  be  able  to  say  that  he  had  seen  one  of  the 
apostles,  or  that  he  had  seen  somebody  who  had  seen  one 
of  them, —  they  began  to  venerate  and  reverence  that  old 
time  ;  and,  as  the  links  which  connected  them  with  it  more 
closely  than  anything  else,  they  began  to  reverence  the  books 
and  writings  that  tradition  asserted  had  come  down  from 
this  distant  past,  and  which  bore  in  themselves  the  imprint 
of  the  personality  and  authenticity  of  those  men  that  had 
actually  seen  the  Lord  and  claimed  to  know  just  what  he 
said.  Under  these  influences,  then,  the  old  Scriptures  —  old 
at  that  time  —  came  to  take  on  an  air  of  authority,  to  be 


36  Beliefs   about  the  Bible. 

invested  with  popular  reverence,  to  be  looked  on  as  some- 
thing closely  linked  with  Him  who  had  come  out  of  the 
heavens  and  had  disappeared  into  them,  and  to  have  about 
them  a  touch  of  the  divine. 

But  who  settled  what  books  should  come  in,  and  which 
should  stay  out  ?  You  will  be  a  little  astonished  when  I  say 
to  you  that  the  question  never  has  been  settled,  and  is  not 
settled  yet.  It  was  settled  by  the  common  consent  of  the 
early  Church  that  the  four  Gospels  should  be  recognized  as 
a  part  of  the  New  Testament  Scriptures;  but  there  has 
been  controversy  from  that  day  to  this  concerning  such 
books  as  Revelation,  as  the  second  and  third  Epistles  of 
John,  the  second  of  Peter,  the  Epistle  of  James,  and  con- 
cerning other  parts  of  the  New  Testament. 

Let  me  give  you  a  hint  as  to  the  kind  of  influences  which 
came  in  to  determine  and  settle  the  question  at  last.  As  an 
illustration,  suppose  I  take  the  Apocalypse  or  Revelation 
of  John,  which  was  probably  one  of  the  earliest  of  the  New 
Testament  writings.  This  teaches  the  immediate  or  the 
speedy  coming  of  Christ  in  the  heavens.  While  that  belief 
was  prevalent  in  the  churches,  the  book  was  very  popular. 
It  was  read  and  accepted  everywhere.  But  when  the  people 
waited,  and  Jesus  did  not  come,  and  the  dream  faded  away, 
the  book  itself  very  naturally  fell  into  disrepute.  They 
came  to  believe  that  the  author  had  been  mistaken,  or  that 
he  had  not  been  inspired.  Again,  there  was  a  fluctuation 
and  a  return  of  feeling  in  its  favor,  as  this  failure  of  the 
prophecies  became  forgotten.  They  took  it  up  again,  and 
began  to  read  it  with  a  new  interpretation,  idealizing  it, 
putting  a  new  meaning  in  its  gorgeous,  figurative  language, 
and  so  getting  out  of  it  spiritual  edification.  They  said  it 
was  not  intended  to  be  understood  as  literal  triith  con- 
nected with  political   upheavals   and   disturbances  of   that 


The    Text  and  the  Ca?ton.  37 

age.  Upon  this  new  tide  of  feeling,  the  book  came  back 
into  favor.  Take  again  the  influence  brought  to  bear  on  the 
Epistle  of  James.  James  was  supposed  to  have  repre- 
sented the  old  First  Church  in  Jerusalem,  and  was  of  great 
authority  in  the  early  Church.  He  teaches,  however,  in 
this  Epistle,  salvation  by  works ;  and  you  know  it  has  always 
been  a  popular  Epistle  among  Unitarians.  Paul  teaches 
just  as  vigorously  salvation  by  faith  alone,  and  we  can  trace 
the  controversy  in  the  early  Church  here.  Those  who 
believed  in  Paul  did  not  like  the  Epistle  of  James,  and 
those  who  believed  in  James  opposed  the  Epistles  of  Paul. 
There  are  traces  in  the  New  Testament  of  Paul's  Epistles 
being  treated  with  the  most  keen  criticism  and  almost  abuse. 
Luther  said  of  James  it  was  an  epistle  of  straw,  because  it 
went  against  his  prime  doctrine  of  salvation  by  faith. 
Luther  would  not  have  it  in  the  Bible.  He  proposed  also 
to  leave  out  the  Revelation,  saying  it  was  not  worth  anything, 
and  should  not  be  there. 

I  speak  of  this  to  show  how  freely  this  New  Testament 
has  been  handled.  Until  the  days  of  the  Reformation,  no 
such  universal,  superstitious  feelings  have  been  held  as  are 
prevalent  in  orthodox  circles  to-day.  The  Council  of  Trent, 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  a  Catholic  council,  settled  finally 
for  Catholicism  the  canon  of  the  Bible  ;  and  this  included  not 
only  the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments  as  we  have  them,  but 
the  Apocrypha.  There  has  never  been  any  oecumenical 
council  of  Protestants,  and  so  there  has  never  been  any 
Protestant  settlement  of  the  canon  of  the  New  Testament. 

What,  then,  are  the  results  at  which  we  arrive  1  Is  it  not 
quite  clear  that,  even  if  there  ever  has  been  an  infallible 
revelation  from  God  in  the  form  of  a  book,  we  have  in 
our  hands  no  means  for  adequately  determining  the  limits 
of  that  revelation  ?     I  certainly  know  of  no  way  of  deciding 


38  Beliefs   about   the  Bible. 

whether  Revelation  and  the  Epistle  of  James  should  be  parts 
of  any  such  book.  Even  if  I  knew  that  God  had  given  an 
infallible  revelation  in  the  form  of  a  book,  I  should  not 
know  what  books  they  were ;  and  I  have  no  means  of 
knowing.  If  we  choose  to  shut  our  eyes,  and  take  the 
authority  of  an  utterly  unfounded  and  unauthentic  tradition, 
we  can  settle  the  question  in  that  way.  We  can  settle  any 
question  by  shutting  our  eyes.  But,  if  we  choose  to  keep 
our  eyes  open,  and  search  for  a  reason  that  is  satisfactory  to 
an  unbiassed  mind,  such  a  reason  is  nowhere  to  be  found. 

So  much  for  the  canon.  Come  now  to  the  text.  Here 
again  let  me  say,  were  I  sure  that  God  had  given  an  infalli- 
ble book  revelation  to  the  world,  I  should  have  no  sort  of 
reason  for  supposing  that  I  had  an  accurate  verbal  copy  in 
any  English,  Greek,  or  Hebrew  manuscript  now  in  existence. 
We  have  not  a  single  manuscript  of  the  New  Testament 
which  takes  us  as  near  to  Jesus  as  we  are  to-day  to  Shak- 
spere. 

The  oldest  manuscript  in  existence  is  the  Sinaitic.  The 
next  is  the  Vatican,  and  the  third  is  the  Alexandrian. 
The  Sinaitic  is  at  St.  Petersburg,  the  Vatican  is  at  the  Vat- 
ican, and  the  Alexandrian  in  the  British  Museum.  The 
Sinaitic  and  the  Vatican  belong  to  the  fourth  century,  the 
Alexandrian  to  the  fifth.  We  have  no  manuscript  that  takes 
us  back  nearer  to  Jesus  than  the  fourth  century.  Consider 
then,  with  all  these  influences  to  produce  variations,  what 
might  have  gone  on  through  those  three  hundred  years  con- 
cerning which  we  are  perfectly  in  the  dark,  and  then  tell  me 
whether  there  is  any  reason  which  appeals  to  a  rational  man, 
which  is  capable  of  making  him  believe  that  we  have  any 
one  single  text  of  the  New  Testament  so  verbally  accurate 
as  to  give  us  assurance  that  we  have  really  the  word  of  God 
as  he  first  spoke  it  to  man.     Have   we  any  such  accurate 


The    Text  and  the  Canon,  39 

knowledge  of  texts  or  words  as  justifies  any  Church  in 
pointing  out  such  a  text,  and  saying  that,  on  the  strength  of 
it,  thousands  and  miUions  of  people  are  to  be  sentenced  to 
eternal  doom  ?  If  I  am  to  have  the  question  raised  concern- 
ing my  eternal  welfare,  I  would  like  to  have  it  determined  on 
the  real  word  of  God,  if  such  a  thing  exists,  and  not  on  the 
possible  blunder  of  a  copyist. 

Such,  then,  are  the  simple  facts  concerning  the  text  and 
the  canon  of  the  Bible.  As  to  more  special  facts  concerning 
the  authenticity  and  authorship  of  particular  parts  of  the 
Bible,  as  to  when  and  where  and  by  whom  they  were  written, 
what  authority  they  possess,  and  the  nature  of  that  authority, 
these  will  be  subjects  for  future  research. 


THE  PENTATEUCH. 


The  Pentateuch  means  the  five  books,  or,  perhaps  more 
strictly  speaking,  the  fivefold  book.  The  limits  of  it,  as  it 
stands  in  our  Bible  to-day,  are  not  precisely  what  they  al- 
ways have  been;  for  Joshua  and  Judges  were  to  be  found,  in 
the  old  copies  of  the  Hebrew  Bible,  along  with  the  first  five 
books,  the  whole  making  substantially  one  composition 
which  went  under  the  general  designation  of  "  the  Law." 
I  shall  this  morning,  however,  pay  no  attention  to  this  fact, 
as  it  is  not  essential  to  my  purpose.  I  shall  consider  only 
those  books  that  go  by  the  general  name  of  the  Pentateuch. 

The  traditional  belief  is  that  these  books  were  written  by 
Moses  under  immediate,  divine  inspiration,  and  of  course 
written  before  the  Jews  had  entered  the  land  of  Canaan. 
This  is  a  significant  fact  to  notice,  because  you  will  remem- 
ber Moses,  the  reputed  author,  died  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Jordan,  in  the  wilderness,  at  the  close  of  the  traditional^ 
forty  years*  wandering. 

These  five  books  contain,  among  other  things,  an  account 
of  the  creation  of  the  world,  the  creation  of  all  things  that 
live,  breathe,  and  move  upon  the  surface  of  the  earth,  in- 
cluding man.  They  contain  an  account  of  the  origin  and 
distribution  of  nations,  the  origin  of  language,  or  rather  of 
languages,  and  the  origin  and  nature  of  evil,  popularly 
called  the  fall  of  man.  Traditionally,  they  are  infallible; 
and  their   teachings  are   set  up   as   a  standard   for  human 


The  Pentateuch.  4c 

belief,  a  standard  to  depart  from  which  is,  in  the  popular 
estimation,  rebellion  against  God,  outright  and  wicked  infi- 
delity ;  and,  of  course,  if  the  traditional  conceptions  concern- 
ing these  books  be  true,  then  it  is  rebellion  against  God  to 
doubt  and  deny,  or  teach  anything  else.  You  see  then  the 
practical  importance  of  the  question  whether  there  is  suf- 
ficient ground  for  believing  that  they  are  inspired  and  infalli- 
bly true. 

Those  who  have  held  this  theory  have  said  that  the  world 
came  into  existence  in  such  and  such  manner,  and  at  such 
and  such  a  time :  therefore,  it  is  sin  for  science  to  dare  to  spec- 
ulate or  to  suggest  any  other  time  or  method ;  and,  on  that 
theory,  it  is  sin.  It  is  daring  to  look  the  Almighty  in  the 
face,  and  question  the  truth  of  his  word.  They  contain  a 
certain  account  of  the  origin  of  man  ;  and  it  is  no  wonder 
that  those  who  hold  this  to  be  infallibly  true  should  be  hor- 
rified at  the  suggestions  of  a  scientist  like  Darwin,  because, 
if  Darwin  be  true,  God,  according  to  their  theory,  is  not  true. 

So  concerning  all  the  other  questions  of  which  these 
books  treat.  Because  God  has  said,  Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a 
witch  to  live,  therefore  hundreds  and  thousands  of  poor, 
excitable,  nervous,  weak-minded  young  women  and  old 
women  have  been  tortured  and  put  to  death.  Because 
God  has  made  it  the  duty  of  a  man  to  betray  to  the  author- 
ities any  confession  of  doubt  as  to  the  truth  of  this  book, 
therefore  persecution  has  become  a  sacred  duty  ;  and  the 
men  who  with  bloody  hands  and  flaming  torch  kindle  the 
funeral  pile  may  look  up  in  the  face  of  our  Father  in 
heaven,  and  expect  his  smile  of  approval.  Because  God 
has  indorsed  slavery,  polygamy,  massacre,  wars  of  extermi- 
nation, therefore  all  these  things  have  had  their  advocates, 
even  in  the  recent  past,  as  eternally  right. 

It  becomes  then  a  matter  of  great  practical  importance  in 


42  Beliefs   about  the   Bible. 

religion,  as  well  as  in  science  and  morals,  for  us  to  know 
whether  this  book,  as  we  hold  it  in  our  hands  to-day,  be  the 
utterance  of  God  or  the  traditions  of  men.  And,  because  of 
the  importance  of  this,  I  shall  speak  as  plainly  as  I  can  con- 
cerning the  Pentateuch. 

There  are  three  main  questions  that  we  need  to  raise  and 
to  answer :  — 

1.  Who  wrote  it,  and  when  ? 

2.  Without  regard  to  who  wrote  it,  is  it  true  ?  Does  it 
tell  us  the  truth  in  science,  history,  and  chronology  ? 

3.  Without  any  regard  to  whether  it  is  true  in  its  history, 
its  chronology,  its  geology,  its  science,  are  we  to  Accept 
its  conceptions  of  God  and  man  as  final  ?  Are  they  up  to 
the  standard  of  our  nineteenth  century  religion  and  morals? 

These  are  the  three  points  that,  as  briefly  as  I  can  con- 
sistently with  clearness,  I  want  to  ask  you  to  consider  with 
me. 

You  will  notice  that  I  coupled  together,  as  though  they 
were  one,  the  two  questions,  when  the  Pentateuch  was  writ- 
ten and  by  whom.  I  do  this  because  these  two  questions 
are  inextricably  woven  together.  If  we  find  sufficient  reason 
to  make  us  believe  that  Moses  wrote  it,  that  settles  the 
question  when  it  was  written.  It  was  written  during  his  life- 
time. If,  however,  we  find  reason  to  suppose  that  it  was 
composed  at  some  later  period,  then  that  negatively  settles 
the  authorship  :  Moses  at  least  did  not  write  it.  For  this 
reason,  the  questions  are  practically  one. 

I  want  to  treat  this  subject  in  such  a  plain  and  simple  way 
that  you  will  not  think  I  am  going  into  technical  and  crit- 
ical details  that  are  profound,  abstract,  and  far  away.  I 
want  to  make  it  simple,  practical,  and  concrete,  so  that 
every  man  as  he  opens  the  book  may  be  his  own  critic. 

Suppose  I  should  take  the  complete  edition  of  Shakspere's 


The  Pentateuch.  43 

works,  and,  as  I  glanced  through  it,  I  should  find  passages 
right  in  the  midst  of  "  Macbeth  "  or  "  King  Lear  "  or  "  King 
Richard  III.,"  that  referred  to  the  telephone  or  steamboat  ?  I 
should  know  most  certainly  that,  whatever  might  be  true 
concerning  the  rest  of  the  plays,  Shakspere  never  wrote 
those  particular  passages.  I  might,  however,  grant  that  it 
was  nothing  more  than  the  interpolation  of  some  other 
writer,  while  Shakspere  was  really  the  author  of  all  the  rest. 
But  suppose  that  these  passages  are  so  woven  into  the  text 
that  we  cannot  tear  them  out  without  making  a  break,  leav- 
ing a  gap,  which  a  master  like  Shakspere  never  would  have 
left.  Suppose,  moreover,  that  I  find  woven  into  the  very 
substance  of  some  of  the  plays  passages  that,  by  implica- 
tion, and  unconsciously  on  the  part  of  the  author,  refer,  let 
us  say,  to  the  corn  laws  of  England,  or  the  agitation  concern- 
ing free  trade,  or  the  debate  about  the  disestablishment  of 
the  Church  ?  Suppose  I  find  these  matters  taken  for  granted 
throughout  the  substance  of  the  plays.  What  should  I  be 
compelled  to  believe  }  I  should  know  that  Shakspere  never 
wrote  them,  though  his  name  and  autograph  were  on  every 
page.  Though  I  had  a  thousand  affidavits  certified  to  by  the 
notaries  of  the  time,  still  I  never  could  be  made  to  believe 
it,  because  it  would  be  unspeakably  absurd  on  the  face  of  it. 

Now  let  us  look  at  these  five  books  called  the  books  of 
Moses,  and  see  if  we  can  trace  anything  parallel  to  what  I 
have  alluded  to  concerning  Shakspere.  According  to  the 
popular  theory,  the  Pentateuch  must  have  been  written  in 
the  wilderness,  before  the  children  of  Israel  entered  the 
land  of  Canaan  at  all.  I  shall  not  go  into  the  subject 
deeply,  but  make  general  statements.  What  I  give  you  are 
only  specimens  of  what  may  be  very  much  enlarged  and 
prolonged. 

As  we  look  over  the  Pentateuch,  we  find  statements  like 


44  Beliefs   about  the  Bible, 

this  :  Such  a  thing  occurred  before  there  was  any  king  Over 
Israel.  Do  you  see  the  significance  of  that?  When  was 
there  a  king  over  Israel?  You  have  got  to  leap  over  the 
time  of  the  conquest,  come  down  by  Joshua  and  the  Judges, 
past  the  time  covered  by  Samuel  and  his  work,  down  at 
least  to  Saul,  years  and  years  after  the  time  of  Moses,  be- 
cause there  was  no  king  at  all  in  Israel  before  that  time. 
Yet  here  this  writer  says  this  took  place  before  there  was  any 
king.  Of  course,  then,  he  lived  after  the  time  when  there 
was  a  king ;  and  he  is  calling  their  attention  to  something 
that  existed  in  the  long  distant  past. 

Again,  we  find  one  of  the  towns  referred  to  and  called  by 
the  name  of  Hebron ;  while  we  know  from  Jewish  history 
that  it  was  not  called  by  that  name  until  after  the  conquest 
of  the  land,  and  until  after  Caleb,  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
people,  had  conquered  this  city  and  had  named  it  Hebron 
after  one  of  his  sons.  Suppose  I  should  find  some  document 
purporting  to  be  written  by  General  Washington,  and  in  that 
document  he  should  refer  to  the  city  of  Chicago.  It  would 
be  precisely  parallel  to  this. 

Again,  there  are  several  passages  which  say,  when  such 
and  such  a  thing  occurred,  the  Canaanite  was  then  in  the 
land.  The  history  teaches  us  that  whole  generations  after 
the  time  of  Moses  had  passed  by  before  the  Canaanites  were 
all  expelled.  And  of  course  this  passage  was  written  long 
after  the  expulsion.  Would  Captain  Miles  Standish  be  likely 
to  write.  Such  a  thing  took  place  while  the  Indians  were  still 
in  Massachusetts  ? 

We  find  another  passage  like  this, —  a  command  to  the 
people  not  to  remove  the  ancient  landmarks  which  have 
been  set  up  as  divisions  between  one  man  and  his  neighbor. 
Before  any  such  command  could  have  issued,  the  people 
must  have  been  long  in  possession  of  the  country.     Individ- 


The  Pentateuch.  45 

ual  possession  must  have  been  established  by  common  con- 
sent, so  that  the  dividing  lines  between  their  property  could 
be  spoken  of  as  ancient.  Sentiment  had  gathered  around 
them  with  this  sense  of  personal  possession,  and  the  public 
mind  began  to  feel  that  it  was  wrong  to  disturb  these  marks 
that  separated  between  the  property  of  one  man  and  that  of 
another.  These  are  superficial  hints ;  but  the  finger-marks  of 
a  later  time  than  that  of  Moses  are  all  over  the  Pentateuch. 

Let  me  now  give  you  an  idea  of  the  composition  of  the 
Pentateuch,  which  makes  the  matter  plainer  still,  if  possible. 

These  five  books,  or  six,  if  we  include  Joshua,  bear  traces 
that  they  are  not  one  single  document  written  by  one  single 
hand  all  the  way  through,  but  that  they  are  a  composite,  rep- 
resenting the  work  of  different  writers  and  different  periods 
of  time.  So  clear  and  distinct  is  the  work  of  those  several 
writers  that  you  can  take  the  book  apart  into  separate  pieces 
and  have  at  least  three  separate  books,  each  one  quite  com- 
plete and  definite  by  itself.  That  is,  you  can  have  three  sep- 
arate stories  as  though  written  by  three  individual  persons  at 
three  different  periods  of  time. 

Suppose  that  you  should  go  to  England  and  should  find 
there,  somewhere  off  in  the  country,  a  house,  the  oldest  part 
of  which  was  of  Norman  architecture,  with  a  later  part  in 
the  Elizabethan  style  and  still  another  part  indicating  the 
work  of  the  time  of  Queen  Anne.  Suppose  there  was  a 
local  tradition  that  the  three  parts  were  built  by  one  archi- 
tect who  lived  in  the  time  of  William  the  Conqueror,  that  he 
was  inspired  to  foresee  what  the  Elizabethan  and  Queen 
Anne  styles  would  be,  and  that  he  therefore  built  the  house 
with  the  three  styles  at  one  and  the  same  time :  would  you 
credit  this  story  ?  It  is  just  as  credible,  reasonable,  and  easy 
to  believe  as  it  is  to  believe  that  the  first  six  books  of  the 
Bible  were  written  at  the  same  time  and  by  the  same  hand. 


46  Beliefs  about   the   Bible. 

Let  me  show  you  how  clearly  this  may  be  made  out.  You 
may  be  surprised  to  know  how  very  modern  this  work  is. 
The  oldest  part  of  it  takes  us  down  to  about  62 1  B.C.  We 
know  from  the  history  of  the  people  that  up  to  this  time 
they  had  never  known  anything  of  the  second  and  third 
parts  of  the  Pentateuch  ;  that  they  had  not  known  anything 
about  the  peculiar  legislation  of  the  second  and  third  parts ; 
that  they  had  shown  no  indication  of  obeying  what  is  be- 
lieved to  be  the  divine  legislation  of  those  parts.  About 
the  year  62 1  B.C.,  we  trace  indications  of  a  part  of  the  Book 
of  Deuteronomy.  The  oldest  part  of  the  Pentateuch  goes 
by  the  name  of  the  Book  of  the  Covenants.  Abolit  the 
time  of  Josiah,  we  find  indications  of  what  is  now  a  part  of 
Deuteronomy,  quite  distinct  in  its  legislation,  commanding 
the  people  to  do  things  that,  up  to  that  time,  they  had  never, 
apparently,  heard  about  or  done.  Straightway,  the  people 
begin  to  obey  this  Book  of  Deuteronomy.  They  follow  its 
directions,  make  it  their  highest  standard,  until,  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  450  B.C.,  when  Ezra  comes  back  from  Babylon, 
at  the  return  of  the  people  from  the  captivity,  he  brings  in 
his  hand  the  book  of  The  Law  of  the  Lord,  which  makes  up 
the  third  part  of  this  composite, —  the  Pentateuch.  This  is 
very  markedly  different  from  either  of  the  two  preceding 
parts.  Until  the  time  of  Ezra,  there  is  no  proof  of  the 
people  knowing  anything  about  this  part  of  the  law,  or  being 
under  any  obligation  to  obey  it.  After  that  time,  it  is  the 
standard  and  guide  of  the  people,  in  the  light  of  which  all 
the  preceding  portions  are  interpreted.  It  becomes  a  master 
that  they  at  least  always  claim  to  obey.  Here,  then,  you 
see  that  we  can  take  these  three  documents  apart,  and  have 
three  different  stories  and  three  different  eras  or  epochs  of 
legislation.  This  is  settled  beyond  question  in  the  mind  of 
every  intelligent  and  unbiassed  critic.     A  man  would  prove 


The  Pentateuch,  47 

a  lack  of  scholarship  or  a  lack  of  fairness  by  even  claiming 
a  doubt.  By  these  surface  indications,  by  the  structure  of 
the  book,  it  is  placed  beyond  question  that  Moses  did  not 
write  the  substance  of  the  Pentateuch  or  any  one  of  its 
books.  The  historical  portions  of  the  Old  Testament  run- 
ning parallel  with  the  Pentateuch  make  all  this  clear. 

Are  we,  then,  to  refer  nothing  of  the  Pentateuch  to  Moses  ? 
Moses  was  the  great  traditional  leader  and  law-giver  of  the 
people ;  and  it  was  perfectly  natural  that,  as  time  went  on, 
they  should  refer  everything  back  to  him.  A  precisely  anal^ 
ogous  thing  is  going  on  right  before  our  eyes.  If  you  will 
only  read  the  development  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  you  will  find  it  is  very  simple  at  the  outset,  growing 
more  and  more  complex  and  composite  with  every  passing  cen- 
tury,—  now  announcing  the  doctrine  of  the  immaculateness  of 
the  virgin,  then  exalting  her  to  be  mother  of  God,  a  deity, 
and  taking  her  to  heaven  ;  then  passing  from  the  infallibility 
of  the  Church  to  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  himself, —  all  this 
grand  development  of  doctrine  going  on,  yet  the  Church  claim- 
ing all  the  time  that  it  has  not  changed  its  doctrine  from  the 
very  beginning  until  now.  The  Church  does  not  admit  that 
it  has  added  an  article  of  belief  to  its  faith  in  all  these  cen- 
turies :  it  is  simply  formulating  now  what  the  Church  has 
always  believed.  That  is  the  claim.  So  the  Jews,  as  time 
went  on,  age  after  age,  simply  claimed  that  they  were  putting 
into  new  shape  what  was  implied  in  the  work  that  Moses 
did,  and  which  was  the  teaching  of  the  law  of  Moses.  It  is 
not  peculiar  then  to  ancient  times.  The  process  is  going 
on  around  us  to-day. 

Did  Moses  then  have  nothing  to  do  with  it  ?  That  is  a 
very  hard  question  to  answer.  He  may  have  been  the  author 
of  the  ten  commandments, —  not  in  the  form  in  which  they 
stand  to-day,  but  in  some  briefer,  simpler  form, —  because, 


48  Beliefs   about  the  Bible. 

originally,  they  were  called  "  the  ten  words."  He  may  have 
been  the  author,  then,  of  the  ten  commandments.  It  is 
questionable  whether  we  can  attribute  anything  to  him 
beyond  that ;  and  even  so  much  is  not  quite  certain. 

Now  let  us  pass  to  our  second  point.  The  Pentateuch 
we  have  found  to  be  written  not  by  any  one  person  nor  at 
any  one  time.  It  covers  centuries,  and  comes  down  to  at 
least  450  B.C.  But  no  matter  who  wrote  it,  no  matter  when 
it  was  written,  the  most  important  thing  for  us  to  settle  is 
whether  it  is  true ;  whether  it  contains  divine  and  infallible 
truth  concerning  God,  concerning  science,  concerning  mat- 
ters of  chronology  and  history.  If  we  can  find  thajt  it  is 
true,  then  we  can  accept  it ;  and  it  will  become  authority  to 
us.  It  will  be  just  as  authoritative  as  the  multiplication 
table ;  and  it  will  make  little  difference  who  wrote  it  or  when 
it  was  written.  Here,  again,  I  can  only  give  you  a  few  ex- 
amples ;  because,  to  cover  the  whole  ground,  would  require 
a  whole  book,  and  a  large  book  at  that. 

Take  the  story  of  the  origin  of  the  world,  the  creation,  as 
it  is  told  in  Genesis.  Can  we  believe  it  to-day  ?  It  tells  us 
that  the  world  was  created,  and  not  only  the  world,  but  the 
sun,  moon,  and  stars,  the  whole  visible  universe,  six  thou- 
sand years  ago ;  that  it  was  created  in  six  natural  days.  I 
hope  that  none  of  you  will  be  deceived  in  regard  to  this  mat- 
ter, or  put  off  with  any  theory  of  indefinite  epochs,  such  as 
have  been  used  to  explain  the  meaning  of  the  word  "day." 
The  evening  and  the  morning  were  the  first  day;  and  the 
evening  and  the  morning  were  the  second  day.  The  author 
definitely  tells  us  that  he  was  talking  about  days  bounded  by 
the  evening  and  the  morning.  Nothing  can  be  clearer  than 
that ;  and  it  is  simply  shuffling,  it  is  dishonest,  it  is  disingen- 
uous, playing  with  words,  for  anybody  to  attempt  to  recon- 
cile Genesis  and  science  by  considering  these  days  as  long 


The  Pentateuch.  49 

periods  of  time.  If  you  so  consider  them,  then  the  seventh 
day,  the  Sabbath,  is  a  long  rest ;  and  we  should  have  to  rest 
for  six  or  ten  or  twenty  thousand  years.  The  writer  then  tells 
us  that  the  world  was  created  in  six  natural  days,  six  thou- 
sand years  ago,  and  that  a  certain  definite  order  was  followed 
in  that  creation.  It  says  that  light  was  created  on  the  first 
day,  and  that  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  were  created  on  the 
fourth  day.  According  to  this,  we  had  light  and  evenings  and 
mornings  for  three  days  before  we  had  any  sun,  moon,  or 
stars;  and,  if  you  are  going  to  stretch  those  days  to  long 
periods  of  time,  we  must  have  had  millions  of  years  of 
mornings  and  evenings  before  we  had  sun,  moon,  or  stars. 

One  other  point.  It  tells  us  that  the  fishes  and  the  birds 
were  created  on  the  same  day,  and  that  on  the  next  day  the 
animals,  creeping  things,  reptiles,  etc.,  were  created.  Now, 
it  is  a  commonplace  in  scientific  knowledge  that  the  reptiles 
preceded  the  birds  on  earth.  Here,  again,  is  a  grand  mis- 
take as  to  the  order  of  the  creative  work.  So  much  as  to 
the  indications  of  the  difficulties  here. 

There  is  another  and  distinctive  account  of  the  creation, 
in  Genesis,  written  by  a  different  hand  and  at  a  different 
time.  These  two  accounts  contradict  each  other.  In  one, 
Adam  and  Eve  were  made  on  the  same  day.  In  the  other, 
Adam  was  made  a  day  or  two,  or  several  long  epochs  of 
time,  if  you  so  consider  it,  before  Eve  was  made.  All  the 
animals  were  passed  in  review  before  Adam,  to  see  if  he 
could  choose  one  which  he  could  be  reconciled  to  take  as  a 
companion.  He  does  not  find  any  to  suit  him ;  and  the 
Lord,  having  decided  that  it  was  not  good  for  Adam  to  be 
alone,  makes  Eve  for  a  companion  for  him. 

Passing  from  these,  let  us  come  to  what  the  Bible  has  to 
tell  us  in  regard  to  the  origin  of  languages.  You  know  it  has 
become  a  great,  distinct,  wide-reaching  science  of  itself,  so 


50  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

that  the  discovery  of  any  critical  point  in  the  development 
of  a  language  is  enough  to  make  a  man  famous  all  over  the 
world.  But  does  Prof.  Whitney  or  Max  Miiller  or  any 
of  the  great  leading  linguists  of  the  world  ever  think  of 
going  back  to  the  Bible  to  study  the  building  of  the  Tower 
of  Babel  as  having  anything  to  do  with  the  origin  and  diver- 
sity of  languages  ?  There  is  not  an  intelligent  man  in  the 
world  who  would  not  smile  at  the  suggestion ;  and  yet,  ac- 
cording to  the  popular  ideas  of  Orthodoxy,  these  men  should 
go  to  the  plains  of  Shinar,  and  accept  the  fact  that  the  Lord 
in  heaven,  becoming  seriously  alarmed  lest  these  gigantic 
and  presumptuous  men  might  scale  the  holy  heights'  to  his 
throne,  to  prevent  such  a  catastrophe,  came  down  and  looked 
over  the  country  to  see  what  they  were  doing,  and  decided 
to  confound  their  language,  so  that  they  could  not  talk  to 
each  other,  and  thus  puts  an  end  to  their  enterprise.  This  is 
the  account  the  Bible  gives  us  of  the  origin  of  languages. 
It  would  be  an  insult  to  your  intelligence  to  tell  you  that  it 
is  not  true. 

Take  two  or  three  figures  concerning  the  Israelites  and 
their  departure  from  Egypt.  It  is  said  that  seventy  souls 
went  down  into  Egypt.  At  the  end  of  their  sojourn  there, 
they  had  increased  so  that  there  were  three  millions, —  an 
utterly  incredible  story.  There  were  as  many  Hebrews  then 
as  there  were  inhabitants  in  the  thirteen  colonies  at  the  time 
of  the  Revolution.  Out  of  these  three  millions,  there  were, 
it  is  said,  six  hundred  thousand  fighting  men ;  that  is,  they 
had  an  army  as  big  as  the  biggest  one  in  modern  Europe. 
Yet,  when  they  started  out,  and  Pharaoh  gathered  together 
his  horses  and  chariots  to  pursue  them,  they  whimpered  and 
cried  and  were  afraid,  and  called  upon  Moses  as  though 
they  were  going  to  be  eaten  up,  instead  of  standing  up  to 
fight  for  their  liberty  and  freedom  with  their  army  of  six 


The  Pentateuch.  51 

hundred  thousand  men.  It  is  a  little  curious,  too,  since  the 
Bible  tells  us  that  during  the  plagues  in  Egypt  all  the  ani- 
mals were  destroyed,  how  Pharaoh  had  no  trouble  in  gather- 
ing horses  enough  for  a  large  army. 

Look  at  another  thing.  There  were  three  millions  of 
people  in  the  land  of  Goshen,  as  many  as  there  were  in 
the  whole  of  the  United  States  at  the  time  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary war.  Yet  word  is  got  around  to  all  these  people  so 
quickly  that,  in  one  nighty  they  departed  in  such  haste  that 
they  took  their  unleavened  bread  in  their  kneading-troughs, 
taking  also  their  horses,  cattle,  fowls,  all  domestic  animals, 
the  old  and  the  young,  the  sick  and  the  well.  The  whole  of 
the  three  millions  of  people  were  notified  to  gather  up 
everything  that  they  possessed,  and  to  leave  the  country  in 
one  night.  If  anybody  can  believe  that,  he  need  have  no 
further  trouble  with  Munchausen  or  the  Arabian  Nights.  It 
is  utterly  incredible  and  absurd.  And  when  the  three  mill- 
ions of  people  enter  Palestine,  though  the  whole  country 
was  not  so  large  as  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  they  are 
warned  to  drive  the  inhabitants  out  slowly,  lest  the  wild 
beasts  of  the  land  get  the  upper  hands  of  them ! 

In  the  third  place,  look  at  a  few  of  the  implications  as  to 
the  religious  and  moral  character  of  the  God  of  the  Hebrews 
at  this  time,  and  see  whether  you  can  accept  the  religious 
and  moral  teaching  of  the  Pentateuch  as  valid  for  us  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  I  want,  however,  to  bear  distinct  testi- 
mony to  all  that  is  good,  grand,  tender,  and  sublime  in  the 
Pentateuch ;  and  there  is  a  great  deal,  a  great  deal  that  the 
highest  and  most  lovely  civilization  in  any  age  need  not  be 
ashamed  of  or  apologize  for.  Take  the  opening  words  of 
Genesis,  for  example, —  though  you  must  remember  that 
they  were  written  toward  the  time  of  Christ, —  the  sublim- 
ity of  the  picture  of  God  saying.  Let  there  be  light,  and 


52  Beliefs  abotit  the  Bible. 

there  was  light.  This  conception  of  God  is  grand.  Again, 
we  find  grand  conceptions  of  him  as  the  thunderer,  as  he 
who  dwells  in  the  heavens,  who  rules  over  his  people,  guides 
them,  loves  them,  cares  for  them.  All  these  things  I  wish 
to  admit  in  a  word  ;  but  the  question  is  not  whether  there  is 
grand  and  noble  teaching,  but.  Is  all  the  teaching  infallible 
and  inspired?  That  is  the  question.  With  the  answer  to 
that  question  the  popular  theory  must  stand  or  fall. 

Let  us  look  at  a  few  indications.  Let  us  take  this  same 
God,  in  the  very  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  in  regard  to  his 
creative  work.  I  refer  to  the  puerility  of  that  idea  of  having 
all  the  animals  pass  in  review  before  Adam  for  him  {o  see 
if  there  was  any  one  suitable  to  be  a  companion  for  him. 
Take  the  creation  of  Eve  as  given  to  us, —  the  Almighty  put- 
ting Adam  to  sleep,  and  performing  a  surgical  operation, 
taking  a  bone  out  of  his  side  and  making  a  woman  out  of 
it :  this  picture  of  the  infinite  God  of  this  universe  coming 
down  and  working  in  that  fashion  ;  and,  again,  after  the  fall, 
represented  as  becoming  butcher,  tanner,  and  tailor,  killing 
animals,  and  out  of  the  skins  making  coats  for  Adam  and 
Eve  to  wear !  This  is  what  it  tells  us.  You  must  take  these 
facts  in  their  literalness  and  simplicity,  and  not  refine  them 
away  with  your  spiritualizing  methods  and  interpretations. 

Take  the  God  who  makes  this  man  and  woman  and  puts 
them  into  the  garden  without  the  slightest  particle  of  experi- 
ence, without  knowing  they  had  an  enemy  in  all  the  universe, 
and  then  making  not  only  their  own  fate,  but  the  fate  of  all 
the  world  depend  on  one  ignorant  act,  he  himself  knowing 
that  the  serpent  was  coming,  yet  not  a  breath  or  hint  of  it 
given  to  them.  Conceive  the  state  of  mind  of  a  people  who 
believed  that  the  future  of  the  whole  human  race  could 
depend  on  whether  they  ate  an  apple  or  did  not,  who  could 
believe  and  make  Jehovah  himself  believe  that  the  question 


The  Pentateuch.  •  53 

of  the  immortality  of  these  sinful  people  depended  on 
whether  they  could  taste  another  apple  or  not.  For  it  tells 
us  that  God  was  afraid  they  would  get  hold  of  the  tree  of 
life  and  become  deathless;  and,  lest  such  a  thing  should 
happen,  lest  they  should  eat  of  this  tree  and  become  immor- 
tal, he  drove  them  out  of  the  garden  and  put  flaming  swords 
and  dragons  at  the  gate.  You  must  rid  yourselves  of  the 
notion  that  the  cherubim  were  angels.  A  cherub  in  the  old 
Hebrew  was  a  dragon  as  much  as  was  the  one  that  guarded 
the  garden  of  the  Hesperides.  It  was  a  dragon  that  was 
placed  at  the  entrance  to  the  garden  of  Eden  to  keep  Adam 
and  Eve  from  returning  thither. 

I  have  referred  to  the  story  of  Babel.  I  will  not  speak 
about  the  kind  of  God  implied  in  the  story  of  the  flood. 
Let  me  speak  rather  of  the  character,  the  conception  of  the 
God  who  comes  to  Abraham  in  the  form  of  man,  with  two 
angels  for  companions.  He  sits  down  in  the  tent-door  of 
the  Arab  chieftain,  while  he  hastens  to  bake  cakes,  to  catch  a 
calf  and  dress  and  roast  it ;  and  then  the  Almighty  God  of 
the  universe  is  pictured  as  eating  roast  veal  and  cakes  with 
Abraham.  That  is  what  it  tells  us.  And,  after  he  makes  a 
certain  promise  concerning  Sarah,  he  notices  that  Sarah  is 
laughing  at  him  behind  his  back,  because  she  does  not  be- 
lieve a  word  of  what  he  is  saying ;  and  he  rebukes  her  for 
her  discourtesy.  These  are  some  of  the  pictures  that  are 
given  of  God  in  all  their  crudeness  of  barbaric  conception. 

Look  at  the  exodus,  and  see  what  kind  of  a  God  deals  with 
Pharaoh  and  with  the  children  of  Israel.  He  declares  be- 
forehand to  Moses  that  he  is  going  to  harden  Pharaoh's 
heart,  so  that,  in  spite  of  everything  he  shall  do,  he  will  not 
consent  to  their  going.  He  takes  upon  himself  the  blame 
for  the  future  conduct  of  Pharaoh,  or  at  least  the  responsi- 
bility for  it.     He  distinctly  indorses  lying  at  the  very  outset. 


54  Beliefs  about  the   Bible. 

He  tells  Moses  to  say  that  they  want  to  go  three  days' 
journey  into  the  wilderness  to  sacrifice  to  God.  He  does 
not  say  anything  about  running  away.  He  tells  them  to 
deceive  Pharaoh,  to  get  his  consent  on  false  pretences.  And, 
for  what  Pharaoh  does,  he  punishes  the  whole  land  of  Egypt, 
—  men,  women,  and  children.  Not  only  that ;  but  he  pun- 
ishes with  disease  and  death  all  the  poor,  innocent  cattle 
throughout  the  whole  realm, — punishes  them  for  what  he  has 
made  one  man  do. 

Let  us  go  on  a  little  further.  We  find  that  this  God,  on 
more  than  one  occasion,  distinctly  and  definitely  indorses 
lying  to  carry  out  a  purpose.  What  else  does  he  do  ?  He 
distinctly  indorses  human  sacrifice.  It  is  implied  all  the 
way  through.  In  accordance  with  this  implication,  human 
sacrifice  lasted  in  Israel  till  within  a  few  centuries  of  the 
time  of  Christ.  The  God  of  Moses  distinctly  commands 
human  sacrifice.  He  says,  if  you  have  vowed  to  devote  a 
man  unto  the  Lord  in  sacrifice,  you  shall  not  in  any  wise 
suffer  him  to  be  redeemed,  he  shall  surely  be  put  to  death. 

Take  another  thing.  When  Achan  sins,  what  does  the 
Lord  do?  He  commands  Moses  to  go  and  separate  not 
only  this  one  man  from  the  people,  but  his  wives,  his 
brothers,  his  sons-in-law,  his  daughters-in-law,  the  whole 
clan, —  men,  women,  and  children, —  all  the  cattle  and  house- 
hold goods  and  effects  that  he  owned ;  and  then  the  earth 
opens  and  swallows  them  up.  He  punishes  with  torture  and 
death  not  only  the  man  himself,  but  everj'body  related  to 
him, —  as  though,  if  one  of  you  here  to-day  should  commit  a 
larceny  or  a  murder,  your  whole  family  —  wife,  friends,  and 
relatives  —  should  be  tortured  and  put  to  death  for  it. 
That  is  the  method  in  the  Pentateuch. 

I  wonder  if  you  have  ever  noticed  this :  that  in  this  same 
Pentateuch  there  is  a  command  that  on  a  certain  occasion 


\'^l:. 

The  Pentateuch,  55 

a  city  should  be  captured,  and  that  all  the  men  and  all  the 
married  women  and  little  children  should  be  put  to  death,  as 
likewise  all  the  cattle ;  but  that  the  young,  unmarried  women 
should  be  saved  alive,  and  distributed  among  the  soldiers  and 
the  priesthood.  What  do  you  think  of  that  kind  of  a  god 
for  the  worship  of  the  nineteenth  century  ?  Slavery,  polyg- 
amy, wars  of  extermination,  everj'thing  barbaric  that  you  can 
name, —  I  cannot  catalogue  any  more, —  you  will  find  in- 
dorsed somewhere  within  the  limits  of  the  Pentateuch  j  and, 
if  that  is  the  divine  and  infallible  word  of  God  for  all  time, 
then  these  crimes,  these  barbarisms  that  the  world  has  re- 
pudiated with  horror  as  belonging  to  uncivilized  times,  ought 
to  be  recognized  as  part  of  the  ethical  and  religious  code  of 
Boston  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

Is  it  necessary  for  us  to  assume  a  theory  of  inspiration  to 
account  for  this  book  of  the  Pentateuch  ?  The  highest  con- 
ceptions of  God  which  are  entertained  there  were  entertained 
in  Egypt  before  Moses  was  born.  Its  highest  and  noblest 
morals  were  also  held  and  practised  to  some  extent  in 
Egypt  long  before  Moses  was  born.  Is  it  necessary  to  as- 
sume inspiration  to  account  for  these  mistakes  in  science  and 
chronology,  to  account  for  this  conception  of  God  and  this 
code  of  morality  which  we  have  seen  to  be  so  barbaric  and 
defective  t 

In  closing,  I  wish  to  call  your  most  sincere  and  earnest 
attention  to  two  or  three  things  :  — 

In  the  first  place,  I  wish  you  to  note  that  I  have  not  been 
attacking  the  Pentateuch.  I  am  simply  telling  you  about  it. 
I  am  directly  and  indirectly  attacking  a  theory  held  concern- 
ing it,  which  the  Pentateuch  neither  asserts,  implies,  nor 
indorses.  And  I  wish  to  say,  further,  that,  when  we  take 
a  rational,  natural  view  of  the  origin  of  this  book,  we  find 
nothing  there  which  need  surprise  us,  nothing  there  which 


56  Beliefs  about   the   Bible. 

calls  for  apology.  The  views  of  the  origin  of  the  world, 
of  the  nature  of  God,  of  the  origin  of  man  and  of  evil,  are 
similar  to  those  which  were  entertained  by  other  peoples  in  the 
same  relative  grade  of  civilization.  They  are  simply  the  views 
concerning  God,  man,  and  the  world,  through  which  every 
people  in  its  development  naturally  passes,  but  in  which  no 
people  ought  to  stay.  That  is  the  point.  When,  then,  we 
take  this  natural  theory  of  the  origin  and  growth  of  these 
books,  we  find  what  we  should  expect;  and  we  are  com- 
forted by  the  consideration  that  we  are  compelled  to  believe 
that  religion  and  morality  are  a  part  of  the  nature  of  things, 
and,  as  such,  based  on  eternal  foundations ;  that  they  grow 
as  nations  grow,  that  they  take  on  the  character  of  special 
grades  pf  civilization,  that  they  are  lifted  up  as  civilization 
is  lifted  up,  that  they  are  enlightened  as  men  are  enlight- 
ened, made  broad  and  tender  and  humane  as  men  are 
brought  up  to  the  ideal  of  their  humanity. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  consider  the  difficulties  that  harass 
us  at  every  step,  if  we  take  the  old  and  traditional  theory 
of  these  books.  We  are  compelled  perpetually  to  disingen- 
uous twisting  and  turning  of  texts,  in  order  to  bring  it  any- 
where into  harmony  with  the  demonstrated  facts  of  the 
modern  world.  We  are  compelled  practically  to  be  dis- 
honest with  ourselves  in  regard  both  to  science  and  the 
inspiration  of  the  Pentateuch.  We  are  compelled  to  believe 
that  certain  moral  characteristics  which  arose  in  the  bar- 
barism of  the  past  world  are  the  eternal  right  and  wrong  of 
God.  We  are  compelled  perpetually  to  apologize  for  God  ; 
to  explain  to  men  how  it  could  be  possible  that  he  who  is  the 
loving,  tender  Father  of  men  to-day  was  once  the  cruel, 
bloody,  heartless,  false  persecutor  and  deceiver  of  men. 

Is  it  not  then  something,  not  to  mourn  over,  but  to  be 
grateful  for,  to  get  such  a  belief  in  the  growth  of  religion  and 


The  Pentateuch.  57 

morality,  such  a  conception  of  the  origin  and  development 
of  sacred  books,  as  shall  permit  us  to  use  our  brains,  to  keep 
the  tenderness  of  our  hearts,  and  at  the  same  time  to  be  loyal 
to  our  highest  thought  of  the  living  God  ? 


THE  PROPHETS. 


Lest  I  should  be  misunderstood  on  what  is  quite  an 
important  point  for  a  general  comprehension  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Hebrew  religion,  I  take  this  occasion  to  say  that, 
if  I  had  pursued  the  strict  chronological  order  of  develop- 
ment, I  should  have  taken  this  subject  first,  and  the  Penta- 
teuch afterward.  That  is,  the  work  of  the  prophets  pre- 
ceded the  law  in  the  shape  in  which  it  appears  in  our  Bible 
to-day.  The  period  of  prophecy,  I  may  say,  in  a  general 
way,  stretches  from  the  eleventh  or  twelfth  century  B.C.  to 
the  fifth  century  B.C.  Parts  of  the  Pentateuch  appeared  at 
various  times  during  this  period ;  but  it  was  not  brought  into 
its  present  shape,  as  we  have  it  now,  until  the  greater  part 
of  the  work  of  the  prophets  had  been  accomplished,  some- 
where within  the  fifth  century ;  so  that,  chronologically  speak- 
ing, instead  of  saying  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Writ- 
ings, we  should  say  the  Prophets,  the  Law,  and  the 
Writings.  Please  bear  this  in  mind,  so  as  not  to  misunder- 
stand the  real  order  of  development,  as  I  give  you  some 
indications  of  the  crude  and  barbaric  origin  of  prophecy 
among  the  Jews. 

The  traditional  idea  of  prophecy,  the  one  in  which  I 
myself  grew  up  as  a  boy,  and  which  I  held  even  in  the 
beginning  of  my  own  ministry,  and  that  which,  I  believe,  is 
widely  prevalent  in  the  public  mind,  is  that   the   prophets 


The  Prophets.  59 

v;ere  a  distinct  order  of  men,  appearing  only  among  the 
Hebrews,  and  leaving  traces  of  themselves  only  in  the 
religion  of  Israel  and  in  the  Old  Testament;  that  they 
were  in  a  certain  sense  a  homogeneous  body  of  men; 
that  though  they  might  be  like  the  different  instruments  in 
an  orchestra,  each  playing  his  own  special  part,  yet,  to- 
gether, they  made  one  music  ;  that  they  had  substantially  the 
same  ideas  of  right  and  wrong,  and  those  the  very  highest, 
the  divine  and  unchanging  ideas  of  ethics;  that  they  had 
substantially  the  same  ideas  concerning  God,  all  agreeing 
in  the  highest,  most  refined,  sublimated,  and  spiritual 
thoughts  of  God,  such  as  are  fitted  to  lead  on  and  lift  the 
thought  of  the  world  forever.  Beyond  this,  it  is  a  part  of 
the  popular  idea  that  one  of  the  main  duties  of  the  prophets 
was  to  foretell  future  events,  things  that  were  to  occur  fifty, 
a  hundred,  or  a  thousand  years  in  the  future,  which,  by  no 
possibility,  could  be  foreseen  except  by  some  one  directly 
and  supernaturally  illuminated  by  the  divine  spirit  itself; 
that,  thus  illuminated,  they  became  a  direct  proof  of  the 
supernatural  nature  of  religion,  one  of  the  foremost  pillars 
to  uphold  the  popular  conception  of  the  supernatural  char- 
acter of  the  Bible,  and  the  religion  it  represents. 

i  remember  when  I  used,  as  a  theological  student,  to  be 
considering  the  great  matter  of  Christian  evidence,  that  the 
miracles  and  the  prophets  were  placed  side  by  side,  like 
the  two  great  pillars,  Jachin  and  Boaz,  that  stood  in  the 
porch  of  Solomon's  temple.  Miracles  and  the  prophets  were 
the  two  unimpeachable  supernatural  evidences  of  divine 
inspiration  and  the  infallibility  of  the  Bible. 

The  special  thing  that  the  prophets  were  able  to  see  and 
foretell,  as  was  supposed,  was  the  coming  Messianic  kingdom. 
They  were  commissioned  to  outline  in  unmistakable  terms 
the  figure  of  Jesus  as  the  coming  Messianic  King,  and  thus 


6o  Beliefs   about  the  Bible. 

to  foreshadow  all  the  glory  of  his  divine  and  eternal  reign. 
This  seems  to  me  to  be  a  fair  representation  of  the  tra- 
ditional idea  of  the  prophets  and  their  work.  I  shall  only 
treat  it  indirectly,  as  I  go  on  with  my  subject. 

Let  me  call  your  attention  to  three  quite  distinct  and 
definite  phases  of  the  development  of  prophecy  among  the 
Jews.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  these  three  are  clearly 
outlined,  following  one  after  another,  without  any  very 
marked  connection  between  them.  I  only  say  that,  in  the 
continuous  line  of  development,  from  the  seer  or  soothsayer 
up  to  Isaiah,  there  are  marked  phases  that  it  is  worth  while 
to  notice. 

In  the  first  place,  as  I  open  the  Bible,  I  find  sixteen  books, 
four  called  the  major  prophets  and  twelve  the  minor,  repre- 
senting the  work  of  those  whose  writings  or  sayings  have 
been  traditionally  preserved  for  us.  A  part  of  these  sixteen 
books  were  not  spoken,  not  preached,  not  delivered  at  all, 
but  were  simply  written.  Some  of  them  were  undoubtedly 
spoken,  and  then  written  out  afterward  either  by  the 
prophet  himself  or  by  some  one  who  heard  him,  who  sup- 
posed himself  to  be  correctly  reporting  what  the  prophet 
said. 

As  you  look  over  any  one  of  them, —  Isaiah,  for  example, 
—  you  will  find  that  a  very  small  part  of  it  even  pretends  to 
be  given  in  the  form  of  prediction,  to  foretelling  anything 
that  is  about  to  take  place  in  the  immediate  or  in  the  far- 
distant  future.  Neither  are  we  to  understand  that  all  of 
these  books  were  written  by  the  persons  whose  names  stand 
at  their  heads  in  all  cases,  nor  that  any  one  of  them  was 
written  through,  just  as  it  stands,  by  any  one  author.  At 
least,  it  is  safe  to  say  that,  in  a  large  number  of  cases,  they 
represent  a  variety  of  authorship.  They  are  made  up  as  one 
might  make  up  the  speeches  of  Burke  or  Sheridan,  if  he  had 


The  Prophets.  6 1 

only  fragments  of  them,  parts  written  here  and  there,  col- 
lected without  much  regard  to  their  quality,  and  without 
much  regard  to  their  chronology  or  place  or  time  of 
delivery,  the  whole  collected  perhaps  many  years  after  they 
were  spoken,  and  edited  by  some  one  who  should  put  them 
in  final  shape  for  posterity.  This  is  the  general  conception 
that  you  are  to  have  of  these  written  prophecies. 

Now  for  the  contents  of  some  of  them.  Suppose  we  open 
Isaiah,  and  indicate  briefly  some  specimens  of  the  topics 
treated.  In  one  chapter,  he  goes  on  to  encourage  the  people 
when  they  are  in  distress  and  are  downcast  by  giving  them 
general  promises  of  the  divine  favor,  and  by  assuring  them 
of  deliverance  after  they  shall  have  received  the  requisite 
amount  of  punishment  which  they  have  deserved,  and  which 
he  declares  to  be  for  their  good.  Then,  he  rebukes  the 
tyranny,  the  impurity,  the  idolatry,  or  some  other  sin,  of  the 
king  or  some  of  the  great  ones  at  court.  Then,  he  will  turn 
to  animadvert  very  severely  on  the  fashionable  frivolities  of 
the  ladies  of  Jerusalem  at  that  time,  describing  the  tinkling 
ornaments,  the  wristlets  and  anklets  and  bells,  and  telling 
them  they  would  certainly  meet  with  divine  judgment  and 
retribution  for  this  lightness  and  frivolity  of  life.  Then,  the 
prophet  takes  up  some  burden  concerning  the  present  condi- 
tion of  Egypt  or  Assyria,  threatening  divine  judgment  on 
them  for  their  encroachment  on  the  people  of  God,  or  some 
judgment  on  the  king  for  entertaining  the  idea  of  alliance 
with  these  foreign  powers.  Then,  idol  worship  in  the  high 
places,  the  mingling  of  the  people  in  the  lascivious  worship 
of  Ashera,  the  Syrian  Venus,  are  reproved.  In  this  way,  the 
prophet  is  more  a  preacher  of  righteousness  than  one  who 
foretells  events  that  are  to  take  place  at  some  future  time. 
In  some  few  places  there  may  be  what  may  be  called  proph- 
ecies ;  but  what  they  mean  I  shall  consider  later. 


62  Beliefs  about   the  Bible, 

Now  take  a  step  back,  and  see  another  type  of  prophet. 
Take  the  prophet  Elijah.  He  wrote  nothing.  None  of  his 
speeches,  if  he  ever  made  any,  have  been  recorded.  There 
are  only  isolated  words  or  sayings.  He  is  not  the  man  of 
writing,  the  man  with  a  pen,  the  man  of  words.  He  is  a 
man  of  deeds,  the  actor,  the  one  who  appears  at  some  crisis 
of  the  nation's  history,  and  casts  into  the  scale  of  what  he 
believes  to  be  right  and  truth  the  tremendous  weight  of  his 
supposed  supernatural,  divine  influence.  He  stands  up  for 
what  he  believes  to  be  the  rights  of  the  people,  and  attacks 
the  tyranny  and  idolatry  of  the  king.  He  appears  like  a 
meteor  flashing  across  the  startled  sky  of  one  of  thos'e  old 
superstitious  kings,  and  then  disappears  again  into  the  night. 
Like  John  the  Baptist,  he  dresses  himself  in  sackcloth,  eats 
whatever  he  can  find  in  the  wilderness,  spends  years  at  a 
time  living  in  the  desert  places  or  concealed  among  the  few 
people  who  believed  in  him,  and  at  some  crisis  epoch  of  the 
people  appears,  suddenly  startling  the  king  and  nobility  out 
of  their  semi-secure  state.  He  appears  to  Ahab,  and  an- 
nounces that  for  three  and  one  half  years  it  shall  not  rain, 
and  then  disappears.  At  the  end  of  that  time,  he  suddenly 
reappears  to  Ahab,  as  he  is  far  away  from  the  capital,  and 
tells  him  to  hasten  to  the  palace  ;  for  he  hears  the  sound  of 
rain.  He  then  goes  up  into  a  mountain,  and  sees  a  little 
cloud  no  larger  than  a  man's  hand,  which  spreads  over  the 
sky.  Then,  in  that  wild,  rapid,  frenzied  way  of  the  times,  he 
cries  out,  runs  down  to  Ahab,  and  in  front  of  his  chariot  till 
he  reaches  the  royal  city  of  Samaria.  This  is  a  different 
type  of  prophet  from  Ezekiel  or  Isaiah. 

Go  back,  and  note  a  third  phase,  earlier  still  than  these. 
Here  is  Samuel,  not  worshipping  in  the  temple,  for  there  is 
no  temple ;  having  no  fear  about  the  high  places ;  worship- 
ping God  under  the  image  of  a  bull  or  golden  calf,  as  it  is 


The  Prophets,  63 

called  in  some  parts  of  the  Bible ;  and  engaged  in  the  prac- 
tice of  what  we  should  call  to-day  clairvoyance,  soothsaying, 
or,  except  for  the  evil  significance  of  it,  witchcraft.  He  is 
the  man  to  whom  Saul  goes  to  find  out  where  something  is 
that  has  been  lost.  We  find,  in  connection  with  this  sort 
of  prophecy,  there  were  what  were  called  schools  of  the 
prophets, —  gatherings  of  young  men  who  lived  in  the  same 
place,  and  who  were  susceptible  to  this  same  curious  kind  of 
influence  which  came  upon  them,  and  who,  when  they  were 
under  this  influence,  acted  like  madmen,  stripped  off  their 
clothes,  lay  for  a  day  and  a  night  naked  upon  the  ground, 
uttering  meaningless  cries  and  sounds,  and  were  supposed, 
while  in  this  condition,  to  be  controlled,  guided,  by  the 
indwelling  spirit  of  the  God  who  had  taken  possession  oL 
them. 

I  want  now  to  show  you  what  kind  of  influence  this  was, 
and  how  it  was  interpreted  by  the  people. 

If  we  go  back  to  ancient  Greece,  we  shall  find  they  had 
one  method  of  divination  which  was  by  the  casting  of  dice. 
They  had  painted  dice,  and,  after  going  through  some  relig- 
ious ceremony,  or  praying  to  some  particular  god,  they  threw 
these  dice,  and  then  interpreted  the  will  of  the  god  accord- 
ing to  the  indications  of  the  throw.  As  we  read  about  that 
in  the  heathen  writers,  it  strikes  us  as  utterly  irreligious,  as 
promotive  of  an)rthing  but  piety  or  spiritual  worship.  Yet 
do  not  be  startled  when  I  tell  you  that  the  eleven  apostles, 
after  the  suicide  of  Judas,  took  precisely  this  method  for 
getting  at  the  divine  will  as  to  the  appointment  of  the 
twelfth  man  to  take  the  place  of  the  betrayer.  If  you 
remember  the  story  in  the  Book  of  Acts,  it  says  that  the 
apostles  gathered  together  and  picked  out  two  men,  either  of 
whom  they  thought  would  be  a  fitting  one  to  fill  this  impor- 
tant office.     Then,  they  prayed  to  God  and  cast  lots,  or  threw 


64  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

dice,  as  we  should  say.  In  this  way,  as  they  supposed,  was 
indicated  the  will  of  God  as  to  which  one  of  the  two  should 
be  the  chosen. 

There  is  another  thing  worth  our  notice  in  this  connection 
in  the  New  Testament.  In  the  Book  of  Acts,  it  says  that,  at 
the  time  of  the  Pentecost,  when  the  divine  spirit  came  like  a 
rushing  mighty  wind,  and  when  the  Holy  Ghost  like  cloven 
tongues  of  fire  appeared  on  the  heads  of  the  members  of  the 
infant  church  there  gathered,  the  disciples  spoke  with  tongues. 
Remember  that  the  Book  of  Acts  was  written  a  great  many 
years  after  Paul  wrote  his  Epistles.  Tradition  had  enlarged 
the  original  story  until  the  writer  really  supposed,  and  tells  us, 
that  these  persons  spoke  so  that  the  different  nationalities  that 
were  gathered  there  all  understood  them,  each  speaking  in 
his  own  language. 

Now  go  back  a  step,  and  see  what  Paul  says  about  this 
same  phenomenon.  Paul  tells  us  that  there  were  a  great 
many  different  gifts  of  the  spirit  among  the  young  churches. 
Some  understood  the  gift  of  prophecy,  some  had  gifts  of 
healing,  some  could  lay  their  hands  on  others  and  they 
would  receive  the  spirit.  Among  these  gifts  was  one  called 
the  gift  of  tongues.  Those  who  read  the  New  Testament 
superficially  suppose  this  was  the  gift  of  speaking  in  other 
languages ;  and  this  is  what  the  author  of  Acts  had  in  mind. 
If  you  study  the  language  of  Paul  carefully,  you  will  find 
nothing  of  the  kind.  The  man  who  has  the  gift  of  tongues 
thrills,  quivers,  sighs,  rolls  up  his  eyes,  is  in  a  rapt,  "  pos- 
sessed "  condition,  and  in  this  condition  he  pours  out  a  stream 
of  meaningless  sounds;  he  babbles.  This  is  what  Paul 
means  when  he  tells  us  about  speaking  with  tongues.  But 
he  and  the  early  Church  supposed  this  was  a  divine  utterance 
of  the  spirit  of  God  who  had  taken  possession  of  the  per- 
sons, and  that  the  sounds,  meaningless  to  ordinary  hearers, 


The  Prophets,  65 

contained  some  divine  message  which  required  an  inspired 
interpreter  to  tell  the  people  what  it  was.  Do  not  seek  this 
gift  of  tongues,  he  says,  because  it  does  not  edify,  unless 
there  is  some  one  who  can  interpret.  Do  not  bring  discredit 
on  the  young  Church  by  seeking  to  practise  these  gifts, 
unless  there  is  some  one  present  with  the  divine  power  of 
interpreting  these  meaningless  cries,  and  of  telling  the 
people  the  message  that  ought  to  be  conveyed.  He  dis- 
tinguishes this  from  what  he  calls  prophecy  by  saying  he 
would  rather  prophesy,  or  speak  five  words  that  people  could 
understand,  than  any  number  of  words  in  a  tongue.  It  is 
not  an  unknown  tongue.  The  translators,  supposing  that 
was  what  he  meant,  put  in  the  word  "  unknown."  It  is  not  in 
the  original. 

This  same  phenomenon  reappeared  in  modern  London 
under  the  preaching  of  the  famous  but  eccentric  Edward 
Irving.  But  that  which  was  divine  inspiration  in  the  first 
century  was  repressed  as  an  impropriety  in  the  nineteenth. 

Now  come  back  to  the  Old  Testament,  and  find  some 
traces  of  the  method  by  which  the  people  believed  they 
could  come  into  possession  of  divine  knowledge.  It  was 
very  common  for  the  people,  when  they  wanted  to  find  out 
any  hidden  thing,  to  go  to  the  high  priest  and  ask  him  to 
divine  by  Urim  and  Thummim.  What  were  these  ?  They  were, 
it  is  thought,  bright  precious  stones  which  were  set  in  the 
high  priest's  breastplate.  We  do  not  know  how  they  used 
them  ;  but,  in  some  way,  these  precious  stones  were  supposed 
to  have  the  magical  power  of  divination.  The  high  priest, 
as  the  result  of  some  special  ceremony  or  sacrifice,  by  the 
use  of  these  stones,  precisely  as  a  modem  fortune-teller  by 
cards,  was  able  to  tell  secrets,  and  answer  the  questions  of 
those  who  came  to  him. 

We  do  not  know,  as  I  said,  the  special  method  of  using 


^  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

these  stones ;  but,  as  a  possible  hint,  I  may  say  there  are  a 
great  many  stories  of  magical  stones  that  were  supposed, 
after  a  religious  ceremony,  to  have  the  power  of  disclosing 
what  was  going  on  in  distant  places  by  a  series  of  shadows 
passing  across  the  face  of  the  stone  itself,  so  that  the  person 
who  held  the  stone  to  his  eye  could  see  these  moving  pict- 
ures. Whether  this  was  the  way  in  which  they  divined  the 
future  by  Urim  and  Thummim,  I  do  not  know. 

There  was  another  method  of  divination  that  was  by  the 
use  of  the  ephod.  This  was  a  curious  girdle  of  the  priest, 
which  again  in  some  way,  the  actual  report  of  which  has  not 
come  down  to  us,  was  used  in  processes  of  divination. 
They  also  used  the  teraphiniy  small  idols,  in  the  same  way. 
You  will  recollect  that  Rachel,  when  fleeing  from  her  father, 
laid  so  much  stress  on  these  portable  deities  that  she  stole 
them  from  her  father  and  hid  them  in  the  furniture  of  her 
camel  and  sat  upon  them,  thinking  thus  she  should  be  able 
to  keep  with  herself  the  divine  favor  and  magical  protection 
that  went  along  with  the  little  images  of  the  gods. 

I  speak  of  these  things  as  common  throughout  the  Old 
Testament.  Let  me  give  you  one  or  two  as  illustrations,  for 
it  seems  as  though  people  read  the  Bible  with  their  eyes 
shut,  or  else  as  though  they  considered  these  things  as  some- 
thing entirely  distinct  from  the  practices  of  other  nations  and 
other  religions. 

Let  us  stand  for  a  moment  with  Moses  in  the  presence  of 
Pharaoh,  and  see  him  holding  his  magical  rod  in  his  hand. 
Moses,  of  course,  was  looked  on  by  Pharaoh  as  a  sooth- 
sayer, a  magician,  a  prophet  like  those  he  already  knew,  and 
any  number  of  whom  he  had  about  him.  When  Moses 
flings  down  his  rod,  and  it  turns  to  a  serpent,  all  the  others 
throw  theirs  down,  and  they  turn  into  serpents  also.  Moses 
possesses  no  power  which  is  not  common  to  the  other  magi- 


The  Prophets.  6/ 

cians,  except  —  and  here  is  the  indication  of  the  interpreta- 
tion given  by  a  later  belief  to  these  old  traditions  —  the  God 
of  Moses  was  a  greater  God  than  the  God  of  Pharaoh. 
Moses  did  not  doubt  the  existence  of  the  gods  of  Egypt. 
There  is  no  trace  of  that  whatever.  Until  after  the  time  of 
David,  there  was  no  doubt  as  to  the  reality  of  the  existence 
of  the  gods  of  other  peoples.  Moloch  and  Dagon  and  As- 
tarte  were  real  gods.  The  only  point  was  that  Yahveh,  the 
god  of  the  people  of  Israel,  was  above  all  the  others,  a 
greater  god  than  any  of  the  rest.  That  was  proved  satisfac- 
torily to  Moses,  when  his  serpent  ate  up  all  the  other  ser- 
pents. These  magicians  could  turn  their  rods  to  serpents, 
but  only  his  serpent  could  eat  the  others.  This  showed  the 
supremacy  of  the  God  of  Moses. 

When  a  king  went  to  war,  it  was  not  simply  a  war  be- 
tween two  peoples  and  their  kings,  but  it  was  a  war  between 
their  gods  also ;  for  Dagon  on  one  side  and  Yahveh  on  the 
other  were  supposed  to  fight  just  as  much  as  the  Philistine 
king  and  the  king  of  Israel  and  their  followers.  Precisely 
the  same  is  true  in  the  Iliad.  There  the  Greeks  and  Tro- 
jans were  fighting  on  the  plains,  but  the  air  was  thick  with 
the  gods  of  Olympus  urging  on  and  inspiring  the  champions, 
guiding  the  dart  of  one,  the  spear  of  another,  overthrowing 
the  horses  and  chariots,  so  that,  when  the  day  was  done,  it 
was  a  question  whether  the  conquest  was  achieved  by  the 
people  or  by  the  invisible  gods  and  goddesses  of  the  air. 
We  find  these  ideas  throughout  ancient  times,  and  they  are 
as  apparent  all  over  the  surface  of  the  Old  Testament  as  in 
the  tales  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  mythologies. 

Let  me  give  you  an  illustration  of  the  way  the  Greeks 
used  to  divine,  and  see  how  all  this  belongs  to  one  stage  of 
development.  Had  you  gone  to  Dodona,  in  Greece,  you 
would  have  found  there  one  of  the  most  famous  of  all  the 


€8  Beliefs   about   the  Bible, 

ancient  oracles.  Any  one  who  came  to  Dodona  could  ask  a 
question  as  to  the  future,  or  about  any  hidden  thing,  and  get 
an  answer  from  the  priest  in  charge.  How  did  the  priest 
get  his  information  }  He  listened  to  the  rustling  of  the  wind 
in  the  supposed  sacred  Dodona  oaks  and  beeches ;  and  he 
claimed  to  have  the  divine  power  of  interpreting  the  sounds 
made  by  this  rustling,  and  thus  getting  the  divine  message. 
Suppose  you  were  to  go  to  another  famous  oracle  of  the 
Greeks,  perhaps  the  one  best  known,  the  oracle  of  Delphi. 
What  would  you  have  found  there  ?  A  temple  built  over  a 
chasm,  or  cave,  from  which  issued  a  vapor ;  and  this  vapor 
either  actually  had,  or  was  supposed  to  have,  the  power  of 
setting  nervous  organizations,  such  as  were  adapted  to  be 
priests  at  Delphi,  into  a  mesmeric  or  convulsive  condition. 
Whatever  was  true  under  its  influence,  it  was  only  such  an 
influence  as  you  could  produce  by  giving  certain  gases  now. 
The  person  becomes  unconscious ;  and  before  he  is  entirely 
gone,  as  we  say,  he  gives  utterance  to  certain  words  or  inco- 
herent sounds  and  cries.  These  words  were  supposed  to  be 
the  utterance  of  the  gods  who  had  taken  possession  of  them, 
and  these  were  the  answers  that  were  given  to  those  who 
came  to  inquire  at  their  shrine. 

This  excited  condition  was  sometimes  induced  by  the  aid 
of  instruments  of  music,  as  in  the  case  of  Samuel.  The 
school  of  prophets  was  preceded  by  the  harp,  the  tabret,  and 
pipe.  We  find  this  the  case  all  over  the  world  among  bar- 
baric people.  Certain  persons  who  are  very  susceptible  are 
wrought  on  by  these  sounds  until  they  are  supposed  to  be 
in  a  religious  frenzy  and  able  to  give  divine  messages  to  the 
people.  It  is  also  produced  by  drugs  of  certain  kinds.  In 
India,  the  Soma^  a  drink  capable  of  producing  intoxication, 
was  formerly  worshipped  as  a  god,  and  the  person  under  its 
influence  was  supposed  to  be  delivering  a  divine  message. 


The  Prophets.  69^ 

Many  of  these  things,  though  haloed  by  the  glamour  of 
distance  and  the  superstitious  reverence  that  gathers  about 
the  past,  were  precisely  analogous  to  the  results  of  religious 
frenzy  as  exhibited  in  the  excitement  of  modern  revivals^ 
He  who  —  as  I  have  —  has  attended  a  negro  revival  meeting, 
or  who  has  attended  a  Methodist  church  on  the  frontier,  and 
has  seen  a  man  or  woman  rolling  on  the  floor,  possessed  by 
"  the  power,*'  knows  what  ignorance  is  ready  to  call  divine. 

Again,  one  of  the  prevailing  beliefs  common  all  through 
the  Bible,  in  the  New  Testament  as  well  as  the  Old,  was  in 
the  divine  meaning  of  dreams.  Either  the  person  himself, 
or  some  other  person  for  him,  could  interpret  these  dreams. 
Joseph  had  the  power  of  dreaming  and  of  interpreting  his 
own  dreams.  Pharaoh  had  wonderful  dreams,  but  he  had  to 
call  Joseph  in  to  give  him  the  meaning.  The  people  had 
no  doubt  that  these  dreams  brought  a  meaning  from  the 
other  world,  and  that  thus  Ihey  came  into  the  possession  of 
divine  secrets. 

Let  me  now  give  you  the  underlying  idea,  the  common 
belief  of  barbaric  men  out  of  which  all  these  beliefs  have 
sprung.  You  are  aware,  perhaps,  that  the  soul  and  body 
have  been  regarded  in  almost  all  ages,  from  earliest  times 
certainly,  as  quite  separable  and  distinct  from  each  other, 
not  only  as  capable  of  being  separated  at  death,  but 
temporarily,  so  that  the  spirit  could  go  out  of  a  man,  and 
he  could  lie  like  a  vacant  house  with  no  occupant,  till  it 
came  back ;  or,  during  his  absence,  another  spirit  could  come 
in,  and  take  possession.  To  take  possession  of  a  man,  then, 
merely  meant  that  some  other  spirit  had  come  into  his 
body,  and  made  him  do  what  it  would,  in  spite  of  the  man's 
individuality.  We  have  a  reminiscence  of  this  in  our  com- 
mon language.  We  say  of  a  person  that  has  fainted,  "  He 
has  gone."     That  used  to  mean  the  soul  had  gone,  had  left 


70  Beliefs  about   the   Bible. 

the  body.  Even  now,  when  a  person  is  getting  over  a 
fainting  fit,  we  say  he  is  "  coming  to,"  — his  soul  is  coming 
back  to  the  body.  We  carry  this  survival  of  the  once 
universal  idea  into  our  language  to  this  day.  It  was 
believed  in  all  sincerity  in  the  Old  Testament  and  New; 
it  was  believed  in  Homer;  it  was  believed  all  over  the 
world,  in  a  certain  stage  of  human  culture,  that  the  soul  could 
go  away  and  come  back,  or  that  another  soul  could  take 
possession.  It  was  believed  —  Cicero  teaches  it,  Philo 
teaches  it,  all  of  them  teach  it — that,  when  the  soul  goes  off 
in  a  dream,  the  scenes  which  pass  through  the  person's  mind, 
the  conversations  it  engages  in,  are  just  as  real  as  any' event 
of  waking  life.  They  had  no  idea  of  the  philosophy  of 
dreaming ;  and,  if  a  man  fell  asleep,  and  during  that  sleep 
had  a  talk  with  a  neighbor,  and  told  when  he  waked  up  that 
he  had  seen  such  an  one,  and  had  had  such  a  conversation 
with  him,  they  believed  that  it  had  really  happened.  It  is 
perfectly  natural  then  that  out  of  this  should  spring  the 
idea  of  possession  by  another  spirit.  For  example,  a  person 
is  seized  with  a  fit  of  epilepsy  and  falls  into  a  swoon  and 
goes  through  certain  motions,  or,  as  in  delirium,  carries  on 
conversation  with  others.  When  he  comes  out  of  it,  he  is 
told  that  he  said  so  and  so,  or  did  such  things ;  and  he  very 
frankly  replies,  "  No,  I  did  not  say  it,  I  did  not  do  it."  He 
has  no  memory,  no  consciousness  of  it.  It  was  the  most 
natural  thing  that  they  should  have  thought  that  such  a 
person  had  been  taken  possession  of  by  another  will,  by  a 
disembodied  spirit,  and,  while  in  this  condition,  the  spirit 
had  made  him  do  these  things,  and  had  thus  talked  through 
him. 

It  takes  only  one  more  step  to  say  that  in  this  way  we  can 
get  divine  revelations ;  and  people  who  were  susceptible  to 
these   influences,   people   who  were   easily    wrought    upon. 


The  Prophets.  yi 

nervous  persons,  who  had  a  tendency  toward  any  of  these 
peculiar  psychological  phases  of  development,  who  were 
inclined  to  hysterics  and  epilepsy, —  these,  as  we  know,  were 
the  ones  who  were  sought  out  to  serve  as  priests  and  medi- 
ums between  this  world  and  the  next. 

You  are  aware  perhaps  that  among  barbaric  peoples, 
among  the  North  American  Indians,  among  the  Arabs  still, 
among  all  people  in  that  stage  of  culture,  that  an  insane  man 
is  looked  on  as  inspired,  and  he  is  treated  with  the  utmost 
tenderness  and  care.  His  words  are  watched  as  though 
instinct  with  divine  meaning,  or,  if  not  inspired  by  a  good 
being,  they  think  possessed  by  a  bad  being.  All  through 
the  New  Testament,  down  through  almost  the  entire  history 
of  the  Catholic  Church,  this  belief  in  demoniacal  possession 
is  very  apparent ;  and  the  business  of  the  exorcist,  or  one 
capable  of  driving  the  spirit  out,  was  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant functions  exercised  by  the  priesthood. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  root  of  all  the  traditional  beliefs 
concerning  divine  possession,  prophecy,  revelation  through 
another. 

These  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament  back  in  the  time  of 
Baalam,  Samuel,  past  Elijah  till  we  come  to  Isaiah,  and  the 
grandest  development  of  prophetic  life  among  the  Jews,  all 
believed  that  they  were  taken  possession  of  by  the  spirit,  and 
that  they  were  speaking  not  their  own  words,  but  the  words 
of  this  indwelling  power,  which  for  the  time  being  had  sub- 
dued their  own  aptitudes  and  faculties,  and  simply  used  them 
for  this  purpose. 

I  do  not  wish  you  to  understand  that,  because  I  have 
given  you  thus  the  root  of  prophecy,  I  have  not  the 
highest  and  noblest  feeling  of  respect  toward  the  grandest 
fruits  and  noblest  outcome  of  it  in  Hebrew  h;§tory.  It  is 
nothing  against  astronomy  that  it  had  its  beginning  in  astrol- 


72  Beliefs   about  the  Bible, 

ogy.  It  is  nothing  against  chemistry  that  it  had  its  begin- 
ning in  alchemy.  It  is  nothing  against  any  of  the  grand 
scientific  developments  of  the  world  that  all  human  culture, 
if  traced  down,  finds  its  roots  in  crudeness,  in  ignorance,  in 
senseless  speculations.  The  function  of  prophecy  among 
the  Hebrews  was  on£  of  the  grandest,  in  its  higher  develop- 
ments, that  has  ever  been  seen  in  the  history  of  any  religion 
on  the  face  of  the  earth.  The  prophet  was  the  tribune  of 
the  people,  standing  between  the  tyrant  and  the  wronged, 
lifting  up  his  voice  for  the  noblest  ethics  and  the  grandest 
religious  ideas  of  his  time.  It  is  indeed  true  that  the 
earlier  prophets  did  not  teach  the  morality  which  we  shfould 
expect  of  the  leading  teachers  of  to-day,  but  they  taught  the 
highest  of  their  age.  It  is  true  that  many  of  the  earlier 
prophets  were  not  monotheists.  They  believed  in  a  great 
many  gods.  They  worshipped  images  of  Yahveh  in  the 
high  places.  Elisha  and  Elijah  were  not  monotheists.  They 
lived  in  the  northern  kingdom,  after  it  was  separated  from 
Judah.  The  first  thing  the  leader  of  the  northern  kingdom 
did  was  to  set  up  two  golden  oxen,  images  of  Yahveh, —  for 
God  was  worshipped  at  this  time  under  the  images  of  these 
golden  calves, —  as  other  people  worshipped  their  gods  under 
some  other  form.  These  great  laws  against  idolatry  were 
developed  a  long  time  after  David  and  Elijah  and  Elisha. 
It  was  a  later  outcome  of  the  religious  development  ot  the 
people.  They  worshipped  Yahveh  under  these  images. 
They  were  not  scandalized  at  idol  worship,  and  that  the 
symbols  of  the  worship  of  some  other  god  stood  right  along- 
side their  own  :  only  they  felt  that  Yahveh  was  their  special 
God,  and  they  recognized  him  as  supreme. 

We  look  back  at  these  prophets,  and,  thrown  into  shadow 
by  their  sides  or  leading  up  to  them,  we  see  the  indis- 
tinct outline  of   other   prophets  who  have  been   forgotten. 


The  Prophets.  73 

They,  in  their  time,  were  believed  in  as  much  as  Elijah  or 
Elisha.  As  time  goes  by,  it  sifts  and  gleans  the  gold  from 
the  sand ;  and  as  we  look  back,  down  the  ages,  we  fix  our 
minds  on  Elisha,  Elijah,  Samuel,  Isaiah,  Micah,  Amos,  those 
great  men.  Why?  Not  because  they  were  believed  in 
chiefly  by  the  people  of  their  time,  but  because  they  really 
were  the  men  who  stood  for  the  highest  and  grandest  things 
of  their  age ;  and  the  others  were  pronounced,  after  the  age 
had  gone  by,  to  be  false  prophets,  because  it  had  been 
proved  by  experience  that  the  things  they  stood  for  and 
taught  were  not  the  highest  truth  of  the  time.  The  process 
of  selection  was  as  natural  as  that  by  which  we  take  out 
Abraham  Lincoln  and  Gov.  Andrew  as  the  ones  that  best 
represented  the  ideas  that  experience  shows  were  the  highest 
and  truest  of  their  time,  those  to  which  victory  was  given, 
and  which  have  been  made  the  dominant  ones  of  the  age. 

These  people,  then,  did  a  grand  service  for  Israel.  It  is 
these  prophets  that  we  have  to  thank  for  the  highest  and 
finest  outflowering  of  the  religious  life  of  the  people ;  and 
the  idea  which  they  represented  was  higher  than  any  relig- 
ious development  that  the  world  had  then  seen.  When  Jesus 
said  God  is  to  be  worshipped,  not  in  this  particular  place  or 
that,  but  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  because  he  is  spirit,  he  was 
only  echoing  the  grandest  sayings  of  Micah  and  Isaiah  and 
Ezekiel.  They  taught  this  grand  spiritual  religion.  They 
stand  as  representatives  and  prophets  of  monotheism  to  all 
coming  time.  We  shall  not  be  able  to  get  any  higher, 
sweeter  notions  of  religion  than  some  which  they  taught. 
All  we  can  do  is  to  take  the  germ,  develop  and  apply  it 
broadly  over  human  society.  When  Micah  says,  "What 
doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love 
mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God  t "  he  has  given  us 
as  fine  a  definition  as  the  world  has  yet  attained.     We  can- 


74  Beliefs  about  the  Bible,    " 

not  improve  the  definition :  all  we  can  do  is  to  live  it  out. 
There  is  one  other  point  as  important  as  any  of  which 
I  have  treated,  and  that  is  the  question  whether  the  prophets 
did  ever  foretell  things  that  were  to  come  to  pass  in  the  far  dis- 
tant future  in  such  a  way  as  to  indicate  that  they  had  anything 
in  the  way  of  supernatural  knowledge.  I  answer  in  one 
word,  No.  There  is  no  proof  whatever  that  the  prophets 
had  any  supernatural  knowledge  of  the  future  in  any  degree 
beyond  that  of  any  shrewd  observer  of  the  forces  at  work 
in  his  time,  who  has  learned  to  understand  that  every 
condition  is  a  cause  that  must  be  followed  by  its  natural 
effect.  Let  me  take  up  two  or  three  typical  examples^  that 
I  may  show  you  how  true  this  is.  It  is  commonly  said  that 
Jeremiah  prophesied  that  the  Jews  would  go  into  captivity 
for  seventy  years,  and  then  return.  He  does  make  that 
prophecy,  but  it  was  not  fulfilled.  It  is  common  to  say  that 
it  was ;  but  they  reach  the  fulfilment  by  doctoring  the  facts, 
by  fixing  an  arbitrary  time  for  the  beginning  and  an  arbitrary 
time  for  the  ending  of  the  period.  In  that  way,  they  can 
reach  to  about  sixty-six  years.  They  say  that  that  is  near 
enough,  and  call  it  seventy  years ;  but  it  is  a  purely  arbitrary 
process,  and  is  beneath  the  notice  of  any  intelligent  and 
respectable  critic. 

Again,  Ezekiel  in  the  twenty-sixth  chapter  makes  a  definite 
prophecy  that  Tyre,  on  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean, was  to  be  conquered  by  Nebuchadnezzar  and  his 
army.  It  was  to  be  utterly  destroyed,  so  that  the  bare 
rock  on  which  it  was  built  was  to  be  a  place  for  the  spread- 
ing of  nets  by  the  fishermen.  The  city  of  Tyre  has  been 
destroyed,  and  there  is  not  much  left  but  the  bare  rocks ;  and 
the  fishermen  have  probably  spread  their  nets  a  great  many 
times  on  them  since  that  day.  But  the  critical  point  is  that 
it  was  not  done  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  nor  for  a  great  many 


The  Prophets.  75 

years  after  his  time.  It  was  really  destroyed  by  Alexander 
the  Great,  when  going  East  for  the  conquest  of  Persia. 
So  this  prophecy  was  not  fulfilled. 

Take  that  prophecy  supposed  to  be  connected  with  the 
New  Testament  and  the  development  of  Christianity.  Isaiah 
says,  A  virgin  shall  conceive  and  bring  forth  a  son,  and 
his  name  shall  be  called  Immanuel.  Then,  it  goes  on  to 
say  that,  before  this  child  grows  to  be  old  enough  to  distin- 
guish good  from  evil,  a  definite  event,  which  is  close  at 
hand,  shall  happen.  This  prophecy  has  been  always  applied 
to  Jesus,  and  it  has  been  supposed  to  be  a  confirmation  of 
the  most  stupendous  miracle  of  history.  In  the  first  place, 
Isaiah  does  not  say  anything  about  a  virgin  :  he  simply  says 
a  young  woman.  For  all  that  the  word  means  in  the 
original,  she  might  have  been  married  half  a  dozen  times. 
Then,  it  is  definitely  stated  that  the  event  which  is  to  take 
place  is  not  in  any  far  distant  future.  It  is  to  occur  before 
the  child  shall  be  old  enough  to  know  good  from  evil. 
It  is  only  a  faith  so  blind  that  it  will  not  see,  that  dares,  in 
the  face  of  modern  scholarship,  to  bring  up  a  case  like  this 
as  an  example  of  a  prophecy  relating  to  a  far  distant  event, 
and  to  claim  that  it  has  been  fulfilled. 

I  say  then,  in  general  terms,  that  there  is  not  a  single  case 
in  the  Old  Testament  of  a  distinct  and  definite  prophecy  of 
a  distant  event,  where  there  is  satisfactory  proof  that  it  was 
ever  fulfilled.  The  prophets  themselves  did  not  claim  to 
exercise  any  such  power  of  foretelling  events. 

What  did  they  do  ?  They  did  just  what  any  of  us  can  do 
in  a  measure.  If,  for  example,  I  should  examine  a  railroad 
bridge,  and  find  one  of  the  abutments  or  piers  was  crum- 
bling, and  that  with  every  train  that  went  over  it  it  grew 
weaker  and  weaker,  it  would  not  take  any  supernatural 
knowledge  to  say  that  some  day  the  bridge  would  fall,  and 


76  Beliefs  about   the  Bible. 

involve  ruin  and  disaster.  If  I  were  to  see  that  there  was 
a  growing  hatred  of  France  on  the  part  of  Germany,  and  a 
growing  power  in  Germany  to  accumulate  money,  to  equip 
and  train  magnificent  armies,  and  if,  by  and  by,  something 
should  happen  to  give  Germany  the  opportunity  it  desired 
to  declare  a  war  with  France,  it  would  not  require  supernat- 
ural knowledge  to  prophesy  desolation  as  the  result.  If  I 
see  any  one  of  you  breaking  the  laws  of  health,  it  does  not 
need  divine  inspiration  to  foretell  the  sequel. 

These  prophets  then  foretold  that,  unless  people  repented 
and  forsook  their  evil  ways,  such  and  such  calamities  would 
naturally  and  necessarily  follow ;  and  this  grew  out  of  their 
belief  that  God  was  a  sovereign  who  loved  righteousness, 
and  would  not  suffer  his  laws  to  be  permanently  disobeyed. 
This  is  the  sum  of  what  is  genuine  and  worthy  your  notice 
among  the  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament. 

I  want  to  give  you  one  or  two  illustrations  outside  of  the 
Bible,  to  show  you  that  there  is  no  need  of  supernatural  aid 
to  foretell  some  things  which  are  very  startling.  Look  at 
the  prophecies  of  Lord  Chesterfield,  of  Arthur  Young, 
of  William  Cobbett,  of  Heine,  of  David  G.  Crowley.  If 
they  had  been  in  the  Old  Testament,  they  would  have  been 
picked  out  as  those  of  the  most  astonishing  nature.  They 
are  more  definite  in  their  terms,  and  more  completely  ful- 
filled, than  anything  that  the  Bible  anywhere  contains. 
Lord  Chesterfield  was  that  famous  dandy,  a  writer  and 
thinker  of  a  certain  sort,  a  person  of  whom  some  one  once 
said  that  he  would  have  been  a  philosopher,  if  the  universe 
liad  been  a  drawing-room ;  a  man  of  no  character,  one  far 
from  the  ideal  of  a  prophet.  He  prophesied,  long  before 
the  time,  the  coming  of  the  French  Revolution.  Arthur 
Young,  a  traveller  and  shrewd  thinker  and  observer,  prophe- 
sied the  same  thing,  when  no  one  in  Europe  dreamed  of  its 


The  Prophets.  77 

possibility.  William  Cobbett  did  a  more  wonderful  thing. 
He  was  a  farmer  of  marked  ability,  a  good  thinker,  a  writer 
of  good  English.  At  the  very  beginning  of  this  century,  he 
prophesied  the  secession  of  the  Southern  States.  David  G. 
Crowley,  in  a  magazine  which  was  published  in  New  York  in 
1872, —  which  is  no  longer  published, —  prophesied  the  gjreat 
panic  which  swept  over  this  country  and  ruined  so  many 
business  men.  He  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  this  would 
probably  be  precipitated  by  the  failure  of  the  Northern 
Pacific  Railroad  and  the  bankers  connected  with  it.  But 
the  most  remarkable  prophecies  of  the  modern  world  are 
those  of  Heine,  the  German  poet,  a  man  of  whom  it  has  been 
said  that  he  read  all  the  sanctities  of  morals  and  religion 
backward,  a  man  who  was  bitter,  cynical,  malevolent  toward 
his  enemies,  ungrateful  to  his  friends,  thoughtless,  sarcastic ; 
not  a  man  that  would  be  supposed  to  be  selected  by  the 
Supreme  Being  as  a  medium  of  prophecy.  He  prophesied, 
long  before  Europe  and  America  dreamed  of  such  a  thing, 
the  war  between  Germany  and  France,  and  that  France  would 
be  utterly  overthrown ;  he  spoke  of  the  line  of  forts  which 
Thiers  was  building  around  Paris,  saying  that  the  enclosing 
army  would  crush  the  city  like  a  contracting  iron  shroud ; 
that  the  communists  would  arise  in  their  fury;  that  they 
would  strike  at  the  fine  public  buildings,  and  the  higher 
developments  of  science  and  art ;  and  that,  in  the  midst  of 
great  popular  disturbances,  they  would  hurl  the  Vendome 
column  to  the  ground.  These  are  specimens  of  some  sec- 
ular prophets  and  their  work.  I  venture  to  say  that  nothing 
in  the  sacred  literature  of  the  world  is  so  definitely  outlined 
and  so  exactly  fulfilled.  They  were  based  upon  a  skilful 
reading  of  the  forces  of  the  world  and  upon  a  knowledge  of 
the  laws  of  cause  and  effect. 

Prophecy  in  Israel  at  last  died  out,  and  was  superseded  by 


78  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

the  Law  and  its  interpretations  in  the  synagogues ;  and  the 
synagogues  were  the  direct  predecessors  of  the  Christian 
Church. 

We  need  not  regard  it  as  a  loss  that  there  is  no  power  of 
foreseeing  the  future.  It  would  undoubtedly  be  to  us  a 
calamity;  and  yet  we  do  have  the  power  to  read  just  as  much 
of  it  as  we  need  to  know.  As  Patrick  Henry  once  said, 
No  one  can  read  the  future,  except  in  the  light  of  the  past. 
In  the  light  of  that  past,  tracing  the  causes  and  the  forces 
that  work  in  human  history,  we  are  able  to  tell  the  natural 
and  necessary  results  of  any  forces  we  choose.  Instead  of 
this  delusive  light  that  comes  in  the  absence  of  reason,  that 
takes  possession  of  the  brain,  and  sweeps  away  a  man's  will 
and  a  man's  intelligence,  and  utters  meaningless  intimations 
concerning  the  future, —  instead  of  that,  we  find  to-day  Gk>d 
and  his  eternal  truth  by  the  development  of  reason,  by  its 
broadest  use  in  every  department  of  human  life,  by  humbly 
studying  the  facts  of  the  universe,  and  deducing  their  laws, 
and  thus  tracing  the  causes  at  work  that  have  made  the 
present  and  that  are  making  the  future. 


THE  WRITINGS. 


Not  long  after  the  return  of  the  Jews  from  captivity,  that 
section  of  the  Old  Testament  which  went  by  the  name  of 
the  Law,  the  principal  part  of  which  was  the  Pentateuch, 
came  into  its  present  condition.  It  is  said  that  Ezra  returned 
from  Babylon  with  the  law  of  the  Lord  in  his  hand.  Some 
time  after  this, —  perhaps  during  the  fourth  century  before 
Christ, —  the  second  collection  of  the  Old  Testament  was 
made,  and  generally  accepted  among  the  people.  This  sec- 
ond collection  went  by  the  name  of  the  Prophets,  and  it  is 
this  of  which  I  treated  in  my  last  discourse. 

After  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  had  been  collected,  and 
had  been  received  universally  by  the  people,  and  had  acquired 
that  character  of  peculiar  sacredness  which  made  them  re- 
garded as  the  very  word  of  God,  there  still  remained  a  large 
body  of  miscellaneous  writings  which  had  not  yet  acquired 
this  character  of  sacredness.  They  were  coming,  however, 
to  be  looked  upon  as  having  a  peculiar,  precious  character 
or  quality,  which  set  them  apart  from  any  and  all  other 
books  excepting  those  which  were  already  accepted  in  the 
canon.  These  miscellaneous  writings  were  twelve  in  number. 
They  were  the  Psalms,  Proverbs,  Job,  Song  of  Solomon, 
Ruth,  Lamentations,  Ecclesiastes,  Esther,  Daniel,  Ezra, 
Nehemiah,  and  Chronicles.  These  were  the  twelve  books 
which  made  up  the  collection  which  was  called  the  Writings. 

In  the  New  Testament,  when  you  find  the  Old  Testament 


So  Beliefs  about  the  Bible, 

referred  to,  it  is  generally  under  the  name  of  the  Law  and 
the  Prophets,  or  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  and  the  Psalms. 
Jesus  is  sometimes  represented  as  using  this  last  phrase. 
Those  three  terms  cover  the  whole  of  the  Old  Testament 
literature,  the  word  "  Psalms  "  being  used  first  as  the  most 
important  part  of  the  collection,  and  thus  giving  name  to  the 
whole.  I  remember  James  Freeman  Clarke  published  a  vol- 
ume of  sermons,  in  which  the  name  of  the  first  sermon  is 
used  as  the  title  of  the  whole  book.  In  just  this  way,  the 
third  collection  went  by  the  name  of  the  Psalms,  because 
it  was  the  first  and  most  important  part. 

I  shall  not  be  able  to  go  into  any  minute  and '  critical 
examination  of  each  of  these  twelve  books,  for  I  neither 
have  time  nor  is  it  necessary  for  the  purpose  I  have  in  view. 
My  object  is  to  consider  the  origin,  authority,  and  authen- 
ticity of  the  books  that  make  up  our  Bible,  so  that  we  maj 
understand  how  we  ought  to  treat  them,  how  much  obedi 
ence  we  ought  to  yield  to  them,  and  what  relation  they  bear 
to  the  other  great  books  of  the  world,  what  relation  they 
bear  to  the  conduct  of  our  daily  life. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  for  me  to  touch  at  length  on  many 
of  these  books.  I  will  only  characterize  them  in  a  word,  and 
concentrate  the  attention  of  the  morning  on  three  or  four  of 
chief  importance. 

The  Chronicles  in  the  Hebrew  copy  of  the  Scriptures 
stood  as  the  very  last  book,  although  it  has  been  placed 
before  the  Prophets  in  our  modern  collection.  It  is  a  some- 
what loosely  written  history,  derived  from  the  Temple  archives 
and  historical  records,  which  either  were  not  accessible  to 
the  writer  of  Samuel  and  Kings,  or  which  for  one  reason  or 
another  he  failed  to  use.  It  is  of  no  special  importance, 
and  need  not  detain  us, 

Daniel  has  played  a  very  important  part  in  the  history  of 


The  Writings,  8i 

Christian  speculation.  It  stands,  as  you  know,  as  the  fourth 
of  the  major  prophets,  and  goes  by  the  name  of  prophecy. 
During  the  larger  part  of  the  Christian  centuries,  it  has  been 
understood  that  it  was  written  by  Daniel  himself  during  his 
captivity  in  Babylon,  and  that  it  is  a  distinct  prophecy  con- 
cerning great  future  events  which,  in  majestic  figure  and 
vision,  are  outlined  and  foreshadowed.  Yet  the  Book  of 
Daniel,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  the  very  last  one  which  the 
Jews  received  into  their  canon.  Instead  of  having  been  writ- 
ten in  the  sixth  century,  it  was  written  probably  in  the  second 
century,  during  the  time  of  some  of  the  Jewish  wars,  per- 
haps under  the  tyranny  of  Antiochus,  with  the  purpose  of 
encouraging  the  people  in  times  of  very  great  oppression. 
Yet  this  book  has  been  characterized  in  all  earnestness  as 
a  "  pious  fraud,"  meaning  by  that  not  what  we  should  mean, 
were  that  term  used  to  characterize  any  modern  composition. 
The  writer  of  Daniel  had  no  idea  of  doing  anything  wrong. 
He  believed  he  was  justified  in  the  work  in  which  he  was 
engaged.  He  was  an  earnest  lover  and  friend  of  his  people, 
and  desired  to  comfort  them,  and  strengthen  their  hearts 
and  hands  in  the  great  conflict  in  which  they  were  engaged, 
to  keep  them  patient  until  they  should  be  victorious  and 
reorganized.  He  writes  this  book,  and  attributes  its  author- 
ship to  Daniel,  a  person  who  lived  some  hundreds  of  years 
before.  He  thought,  by  sending  it  out  under  the  authority 
of  this  great  name,  it  might  speedily  take  hold  of  the  popu- 
lar mind  and  heart,  and  produce  the  desired  effect.  Yet 
this  book  has  been  the  one  to  which  the  Second  Adventists 
have  appealed.  A  book  from  whose  mystical  figures  people 
have  dared  to  read  the  future,  year  after  year  and  age  after 
age,  dealing  with  "  a  time,  times,  and  a  half,"  with  the  big 
horn  and  the  little  horn,  and  with  the  beasts,  in  their  en- 
deavor to  picture  the  future  course  and  destiny  of  nations. 


82  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

You  will  judge  from  the  time  when  the  book  was  written 
how  very  little  profit  there  has  been  in  this  kind  of  specula- 
tion. 

Esther  is  a  very  peculiar  book,  one  that  the  Jews  long 
looked  at  askance  before  receiving  it  into  their  canon.  It  is 
marked  by  the  fact  that  it  does  not  contain  the  name  of 
God,  and  has  no  religious  character  about  it  whatever.  The 
Jews,  while  they  were  in  captivity,  adopted  a  feast  called  the 
Purim,  which  became  one  of  their  most  famous  feasts,  and 
to  which  they  were  greatly  attached.  After  the  return  from 
the  captivity,  it  was  difficult  to  make  this  feast  popular  in 
Palestine.  Undoubtedly  for  the  purpose  of  giving  a  plausi- 
ble Jewish  origin  to  this  festival,  and  to  make  it  acceptable 
to  the  Palestine  Jews,  this  book  was  written.  At  least,  such 
is  its  probable  scope  and  purpose. 

Ruth  is  a  beautiful  pastoral  idyl,  one  of  the  most  beauti- 
ful things  in  the  whole  Bible.  Its  whole  purpose,  so  far  as 
we  can  see,  and  that  which  made  it  so  dear  to  the  popular 
heart,  is  the  fact  that  it  traces  the  supposed  genealogy  and 
origin  of  David,  their  favorite  king  and  their  ideal  national 
hero. 

Lamentations  is  simply  an  anonymous  book,  written  in  a 
strain  of  elegy,  and  mourning  over  the  desolations  of  the 
people. 

Ezra  and  Nebemiah,  two  books,  though  substantially  one, 
give  us  an  account  of  the  history  of  the  revival  of  the  Jewish 
people  and  the  reorganization  of  their  national  religion  after 
their  return  from  the  captivity. 

The  Book  of  Proverbs,  supposed  to  have  been  written  by 
Solomon  just  as  it  stands,  indicates  on  its  surface  that  it  has 
a  divided  authorship.  The  last  chapter,  it  is  said,  was 
written  by  the  mother  of  King  Lemuel,  another  by  Agur. 
Whole  chapters   throughout   the  book  are  not  proverbs  at 


The   Writings.  83 

all,  but  ethical  treatises,  containing  advice  from  one  who 
has  been  through  life  and  learned  its  temptations  and  mean- 
ing. They  could  not  have  been  written  by  Solomon  or  by 
any  one  man.  Many  of  the  proverbs  are  not  even  of  Jewish 
origin.  But  the  tendency  to  attribute  such  a  book  to  a 
particular  author  is  perfectly  natural.  As  if  to-day  I  should 
make  a  collection  of  prudential  maxims  such  as  Poor 
Richard  made  himself  famous  for,  and  entitle  it  Maxims 
by  Benjamin  Franklin  and  others,  and  the  book  should 
grow  and  additions  be  made  to  it,  it  would  be  easy  for  the 
popular  mind  to  think  that  he  was  the  author  of  them  all. 
People  would  cease  to  make  any  distinction  between  his 
maxims  and  the  others.  They  would  quote  these  maxims 
as  though  all  belonged  to  Poor  Richard's  sayings.  In  this 
way,  the  Book  of  Proverbs  has  probably  grown.  Solomon 
had  a  great  reputation  among  his  people  for  shrewd  observa- 
tion, for  wise  and  witty  sayings.  He  was  skilled  and 
experienced  in  interpreting  riddles  and  solving  problems 
of  nature  and  of  life  j  and  he  came  to  stand  in  their  minds 
as  a  representative  proverb-maker,  and  tradition  associates 
his  name  with  this  collection.  This  tendency  is  perfectly 
natural.  You  constantly  hear  people  quoting  sayings  from 
Sydney  Smith  which  may  possibly  have  been  familiar  to 
ancient  Rome  or  Greece,  or  perhaps  may  have  originated 
last  year  in  a  Western  newspaper,  but  attributed  to  him, 
because  he  is  the  representative  wit  of  the  English  people ; 
and  it  is  safe  to  suppose  that  anything  witty  of  which  the 
origin  is  not  known  was  originated  by  him. 

Let  us  now  concentrate  our  attention  on  the  four  most 
important  books  in  this  collection  called  The  Writings. 

First,  the  collection  of  Psalms,  the  Psalms  of  David,  as 
they  are  popularly  called.  I  used  to  suppose,  and  probably 
most  of  you  were  taught  to  believe,  that,  in  spite  of  the  fact 


84  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

that  the  sons  of  Korah  and  the  name  of  Moses  and  other 
names  are  given  as  the  composers  of  some  of  these  psalms, 
yet  David  was  the  writer  of  them  all.  This,  I  say,  is  the 
popular  idea  that  has  been  in  the  minds  of  the  people  for 
centuries. 

What  is  this  Book  of  Psalms?  It  is  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  the  Jewish  hymn-book.  It  is  the  hymn-book  of 
the  second  temple ;  that  is,  the  temple  built  under  the  aus- 
pices of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  on  the  return  of  the  Jews  from 
their  captivity  in  Babylon.  As  we  examine  the  book,  we 
find  it  divided  into  five  different  sections  or  separate  classes 
of  hymns  or  psalms.  The  first  reaches  from  the  second  to 
the  forty-first  psalm ;  the  second,  from  the  forty-second 
to  the  seventy- second ;  the  third,  from  the  seventy-third  to 
the  eighty-ninth ;  the  fourth,  from  the  ninetieth  to  the  one 
hundred  and  sixth;  the  fifth,  from  the  one  hundred  and 
seventh  to  the  one  hundred  and  forty-ninth.  You  will 
notice  that  I  say  nothing  about  the  first  or  last  psalms. 
The  first  was  added  after  the  general  collection  was  made 
as  a  sort  of  general  introduction,  and  in  the  old  Jewish 
psalm-book  the  second  psalm  counted  as  the  first.  The 
one  hundred  and  fiftieth  psalm  was  added  .as  an  epilogue  to 
the  general  collection.  So  there  were  originally  only  one 
hundred  and  forty-eight  psalms.  You  will  find  the  second 
psalm  quoted  in  the  New  Testament;  and,  although  our 
translators  have  made  Jesus  quote  from  the  second,  in  the 
original  Greek  he  quotes  from  the  first,  because  that  was 
originally  the  first. 

These  five  books  were  collected  at  five  different  times.  I 
need  not  go  critically  into  this.  The  first  book,  either  par- 
tially or  entirely,  was  brought  together  and  was  in  use  dur- 
ing the  service  of  the  first  temple,  the  temple  of  Solomon. 
In  this  first  book,  if  anywhere,  we  must  look  for  some  of  the 


The  Writings,  S5 

poetic  work  of  King  David;  for,  after  that  first  book,  you 
will  probably  find  none  of  his  work  at  all.  As  you  look  at 
these  psalms,  you  will  see  that  they  have  various  headings, 

—  such  as  "A  Psalm  of  David,"  or  "David's  confidence  in 
God's  grace,'*  or  "  David  praiseth  God  for  his  deliverance," 

—  but  you  are  to  remember  as  you  read  them  that  these  are 
no  part  of  the  original  work  at  all.  All  these  headings  and 
notes  are  the  work  of  editors,  and  not  of  the  poetical  authors 
themselves.  If  you  look  back  to  your  childhood,  you  can 
remember  how  you  used  to  hear  the  minister  in  the  pulpit, 
or  your  father  at  morning  worship,  reading,  as  though  they 
were  a  part  of  the  inspired  Psalm,  certain  detached  words 
which  we  now  know  to  be  a  sort  of  musical  notation.  It  is 
as  though,  when  reading  the  hymn,  I  should  read  the  words 
andante,  fortissimo, —  Italian  words  for  the  guidance  of  the 
musicians.  So  certain  words,  such  as  Selah  and  Higgaion, 
are  simply  indications  to  the  singers  as  to  how  the  music 
should  be  performed,  whether  with  accompaniment  of  instru- 
ments or  by  voices  alone,  whether  high  or  low,  etc. 

Now,  a  word  in  regard  to  temple  music,  that  you  may 
understand  something  as  to  how  these  hymns  were  used. 
Some  were  used  only  for  special  occasions,  as  on  festivals, — 
as  we  have  our  Easter  and  Christmas  hymns,  suitable  only  to 
those  occasions.  Others  formed  part  of  the  general  service. 
It  is  stated  in  one  place  in  the  Bible  that  they  had  some 
four  thousand  singers.  That  is  probably  a  larger  number 
than  was  permanently  attached  to  the  temple.  They  had, 
however,  between  two  and  three  hundred  men  and  women 
engaged  in  the  temple  singing.  The  idea  that  the  women 
must  be  shut  off  in  a  gallery  by  themselves  apart  from  the 
men  was  not  a  part  of  the  Old  Testament  idea  of  service. 
It  is  a  more  modern  notion.  There  were  then  between 
two  and  three  hundred  voices.     These  were   accompanied 


S6  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

generally  by  stringed  instruments  simply  to  aid  the  singers, 
as  we  are  accompanied  by  the  organ  to  sustain  and  guide 
and  direct  the  multitude  of  our  voices.  If  you  think  of  the 
three  hundred  men  and  women's  voices,  with  lyres  and  harps, 
and  now  and  then  cymbals  to  mark  the  time,  as  we  use  them 
to-day,  you  will  have  a  very  good  idea  of  the  temple  choir,  as 
they  performed  their  daily  and  Sabbath  services.  Only  you 
must  not  think  of  them  as  singing  as  we  do ;  for  harmony,  or 
the  blending  of  the  different  parts  of  the  song  in  one  gen- 
eral effect,  is  a  modern  thing  in  music,  and  was  unknown  to 
the  ancient  Hebrews.  They  had  no  poetry  in  the  sense  in 
which  we  use  that  word,  perfect  in  rhythm,  time,  and  rhyme. 
Theirs  was  perfect  only  in  alliteration  and  rhythm,  or  meas- 
ure. There  was  no  rhyme.  Their  singing  was  more  like  a 
chant  than  anything  we  call  harmonic  music  :  they  sang  only 
melody. 

These  five  books,  then,  that  make  up  the  Psalms,  were  col- 
lected at  different  times  by  different  editors.  They  came  at 
last  to  be  looked  on  as  chiefly  the  work  of  David.  How  did 
this  idea  arise  ?     In  several  ways. 

Suppose  I  should  make  a  collection  of  hymns.  I  might 
take,  as  a  basis,  "Watts  and  Select."  If  by  and  by  that 
book  passes  out  of  use,  and  somebody  else  makes  a  collec- 
tion, and  carelessly  marks  all  taken  from  "Watts  and 
Select "  as  simply  "  Watts,"  meaning  the  collection  and  not 
that  he  was  the  author,  when  by  and  by  "  Watts  and  Select " 
should  be  entirely  lost,  many  would  suppose  that  Watts  was 
the  author  of  all  the  hymns  bearing  his  name  in  the  last 
collection.  And  remember  that  in  those  old  times  there 
was  no  printing,  and  no  chance  for  people  to  correct  errors 
by  comparison.  In  this  way,  therefore,  many  of  the  old 
psalms  that  formed  part  of  the  Davidic  collection,  which 
was  formed  for  the  first  temple,  were  transferred  to  the  later 


The   Writings,  8j 

bookS)  and  were  therefore  thought  to  have  been  written  by 
David. 

It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  he  wrote  many.  Let  me  indi- 
cate a  few  reasons  why  he  could  not  have  done  so.  I  take 
one  of  the  Psalms,  for  example,  with  reference  to  the  temple 
worship.  Of  course,  David  did  not  refer  to  that.  There  was 
no  temple  in  existence  until  after  he  was  dead.  If  joy  and 
love  in  temple  worship  were  expressed,  it  was  written  by 
some  one  who  lived  after  there  was  a  temple. 

Take  the  one  hundred  and  nineteenth  psalm,  devoted  to  a 
passionate  love  and  admiration  for  the  law.  The  law  came 
into  its  present  shape  after  the  captivity.  Before  a  person 
could  write  the  one  hundred  and  nineteenth  psalm,  the  law 
*.iust  have  been  familiar  to  his  mind  for  years  and  years, 
ii_-til  there  could  grow  up  this  passionate  admiration  and  love 
for  it.  It  must  have  been  made  dear  by  association.  It 
could  not  have  been  written  until  within  a  few  centuries 
before  Christ,  hundreds  of  years  after  David  was  dead. 

The  one  hundred  and  thirty-seventh  psalm,  beginning,  "  By 
the  riveis  of  Babylon  there  we  sat  down ;  yea,  we  wept,  when 
we  remembered  Zion,"  must  have  been  written  by  some  one 
who  had  been  in  Babylon  during  the  captivity,  hundreds  of 
years  after  David  was  dead. 

How  has  the  popular  idea  of  David  arisen  ?  The  people 
have  assumed  that  David  wrote  the  Psalms ;  and  then  they 
have  gone  to  work  and  created  an  ideal  sort  of  man,  made 
up  of  the  materi.  is  of  which  the  Psalms  are  composed,  and 
they  call  that  D«vid.  That  is,  they  have  assumed  that  he 
wrote  the  Psalms,  and  have  created  an  ideal  image  of  such  a 
man  as  would  be  likely  to  write  such  things  as  these.  They 
have  made  him  spiritual,  noble,  a  monotheist,  giving  the  high- 
est worship  to  God.  But  look  at  the  outlines  of  the  early  part 
of  his  life.     He  went  into  the  wilderness  at  the  head  of  a 


SS  Beliefs  about   the  Bible. 

band  of  cut-throats,  murderers,  and  convicts  of  every  kind, 
and  there  remained  for  a  certain  number  of  years,  until  strong 
enough  to  seize  the  throne.  Then,  he  is  a  barbaric  leader,  a 
man  of  immense  power  and  force  of  personality,  a  man  of 
great  genius,  a  man  who  first  welded  those  conflicting  tribes 
into  one  nation,  but  no  more  of  a  saint  than  Richard  Coeur 
de  Lion  or  Henry  VIII.  He  was  cruel  and  vindictive.  He 
worshipped  Yahveh;  but  he  also  worshipped  Baal,  and 
named  one  of  his  sons  for  him.  He  sacrificed  the  seven 
sons  of  Saul  to  Yahveh ;  and,  when  he  conquers  the  Ammon- 
ites and  captures  one  of  their  rebellious  cities,  he  puts  the 
inhabitants  to  the  severest  torture,  and  burns  them  alive. 
And  he  did  this  to  all  the  captured  cities  of  the  Ammonites. 
This  is  not  the  kind  of  man  you  would  think  of  as  writing 
the  poetic  and  beautiful  and  spiritual  lines  of  many  of  the 
Psalms,  that  have  been  the  comfort  of  souls  for  hundreds  of 
years.  You  might  as  well  think  of  Henry  VIII.  writing  a 
treatise  against  Divorces  as  to  suppose  that  King  David  was 
the  author  of  most  of  the  Psalms.  The  contradiction  on 
the  face  of  it  is  as  clear  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other. 

How  many  did  he  write  then  t  Instead  of  giving  you  my 
own  opinion,  I  will  give  you  the  opinion  of  Prof.  Robertson 
Smith,  the  author  of  the  article  on  the  Bible  in  the  Encyclo- 
padia  Britannica,  one  of  the  most  eminent  Biblical  scholars 
in  the  world.  He  thinks  it  would  be  very  critical  to  say  that 
David  did  not  write  any.  According  to  his  opinion,  he  may 
have  written  the  eighteenth  and  the  seventh.  He  thinks  it 
is  probable  he  wrote  them. 

The  Psalms,  however,  whoever  wrote  them,  do  not  depend 
upon  their  authorship  for  their  power  and  beauty.  They 
range  from  the  highest  lyrical  poetry  in  the  world  to  mechan- 
ical verse  without  any  trace  of  inspiration.  Some  are 
acrostics :  the  writer  begins  every  line  with  a  certain  letter 


The   Writings.  89 

of  the  Jewish  alphabet.  But  there  are  others  that  bubble 
up  like  springs  that  have  their  source  at  the  very  heart  of 
the  world,  full  of  life  and  sun  and  joy  forever.  Some  of  the 
Psalms,  however,  derive  a  great  part  of  their  wealth  from 
association.  A  Cremona  violin  is  not  so  valuable  when  first 
constructed.  After  it  has  been  used  for  years  and  years, 
after  it  has  expressed  the  joy  and  sorrow  of  the  world,  until 
these  have  been  wrought  into  it,  so  that  it  seems  as  though 
it  had  a  soul  of  its  own,  then  it  becomes  a  valuable  instru- 
ment,—  valuable  because  of  these  stored-up  vibrations,  and 
worthy  of  the  touch  of  the  grandest  master.  Precisely  so 
these  Psalms  have  been  played  upon  by  human  sympathies 
and  hopes  and  fears  and  imaginations  for  centuries,  until 
they  are  permeated  and  colored  all  the  way  through  by  the 
passionate  joy  and  the  passionate  sorrow  of  the  human 
heart. 

As  an  illustration  how  association  changes  the  very  inter- 
pretation of  the  passage  itself,  take  that  familiar  one,  "  Oh, 
worship  the  Lord  in  the  beauty  of  holiness."  How  sweet 
and  fine  this  thought !  —  the  beauty  of  holiness,  representing 
a  state  of  culture  that  is  looked  on  as  ideal  beauty.  Does 
the  author  mean  that  ?  If  I  should  give  you  the  original 
meaning,  all  the  spiritual  aspiration  goes  out  of  it.  The 
writer  simply  says,  I  will  worship  the  Lord  in  the  beauty  of 
consecrated  garments,  with  beautiful  robes  and  ritual.  But 
you  will  never  get  that  idea  back  into  it  again ;  for  the  heart 
of  the  world  has  written  over  that  line,  and  filled  it  with 
spiritual  meaning.  So  a  large  part  of  the  wealth  of  the 
Psalms  is  not  what  the  writer  put  into  them,  but  what  the 
experience  of  the  world  has  written  between  the  lines. 

The  Song  of  Solomon  is  generally  spoken  of  apologet- 
ically. It  was  a  long  time  after  it  was  written  before  it  was 
introduced   into   the  canon.     As  it  stands,  it  is  the  oldest 


90  Beliefs  about  the   Bible. 

book  probably  in  Hebrew  literature.  It  was  after  the  time 
of  Christ  before  it  was  admitted  as  a  sacred  book.  It  was 
cherished  in  the  heart  of  the  people,  but  they  could  not  get 
over  the  fact  that  it  did  not  appear  to  be  at  all  religious. 
They  could  not  find  any  reason  for  admitting  it  to  the  canon, 
until  at  last  Rabbi  Akiba,  a  man  of  overmastering  influence, 
said  that  the  whole  world  was  not  worth  the  day  on  .which 
that  song  was  given  to  Israel ;  and!  that  fact,  together  with 
the  idea  that  it  was  attributed  to  Solomon,  settled  the  ques- 
tion, and  it  was  admitted.  The  probability  is  that  Solomon 
had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  It  is  sometimes  charged  with 
being  an  obscene  and  impure  book.  There  is  not  a  more 
beautiful  or  pure  poem  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  What 
does  it  teach  ?  What  is  its  moral  ?  It  is  a  dramatic  poem, 
or  as  near  that  as  the  Jewish  genius  ever  attained,  and  rep- 
resents a  beautiful  country  maiden,  who  is  betrothed  to  a 
shepherd  lad,  enduring  the  blandishments  of  the  courtiers 
who  are  endeavoring  to  lure  her  from  her  country  lover,  and 
make  her  the  chief  figure  in  the  royal  harem.  In  spite  of 
all  these  blandishments  of  the  gay  court  and  city,  she  resists, 
and  remains  true  to  her  rustic  lover,  and  at  last  is  permitted 
to  go  back  to  her  friends,  her  home,  and  her  love.  That 
is  the  moral.  If  any  one  can  find  anything  impure  in  that, 
they  could  question  the  purity  of  a  rose  in  a  glass  vase  on 
the  parlor  table.  There  is  nothing  particularly  religious  in 
this  book  except  this  undying  faithfulness.  Yet  the  heart 
of  it  is  true  from  beginning  to  end.  But  do  you  suppose 
Solomon  would  sit  down  deliberately  and  write  a  song  in 
which  he  would  delineate  his  discomfiture,  and  set  forth 
how  he  tried  to  woo  and  win  a  country  maiden,  and  could 
not  succeed,  but  had  to  let  her  go  back  to  her  country  lover 
again  ?  People  who  go  through  with  that  experience  do  not 
usually  set   it   forth   in   songs   of  that  fashion.     With  this 


The   Writings.  91 

conception,  the  song  is  beautiful  from  beginning  to  end. 
Let  us  pass  to  Ecclesiastes.  This  is  also  one  of  the  last 
books  admitted  to  the  canon.  It  came  in  with  a  great  deal 
of  difficulty,  and  probably  would  never  have  been  admitted, 
had  it  not  been  that  Solomon  was  supposed  to  be  the  author. 
His  name  floated  it,  so  that  it  kept  on  the  surface  of  Jewish 
thought;  and  we  may  be  thankful  for  the  kind  of  half- 
fraud  which  gave  his  name  to  the  book,  because  it  is  an 
intensely  interesting  specimen  of  ancient  literature.  The 
writer  says,  "  I,  the  Preacher,  was  king  over  Israel  in  Jeru- 
salem." Take  that  last  phrase.  When  Solomon  was  king, 
there  was  no  king  anywhere  else  except  in  Jerusalem.  Why 
should  he  say  that  he  was  king  in  Jerusalem  ?  If  a  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  should  speak  of  himself,  he  would 
not  say,  when  I  was  President  in  Washington.  There  is  no 
president  elsewhere :  why  specify  it  in  that  fashion  t  But,  in 
later  times,  there  was  another  king  at  Samaria ;  and  it  would 
be  natural  for  a  person  in  a  subsequent  period  to  use  such 
an  expression.  Again,  Solomon  would  be  likely  to  use  the 
present  tense.  He  was  king  all  the  time  until  he  died.  He 
would  not  write  of  himself  in  the  past.  Again,  the  writer 
refers  to  Judea  as  a  province.  It  was  not  a  province  for 
hundreds  of  years  after  the  time  of  Solomon.  If  you  know 
the  character  of  the  book,  you  will  see  with  what  difficulty  it 
must  have  been  admitted.  There  is  little  religious  in  it 
It  is  pessimistic  to  the  last  degree,  hopeless  of  this  world, 
despairing  of  human  society,  hopeless  of  the  future.  The 
writer  is  a  fatalist.  He  says  that  the  world  is  all  vanity  and 
vexation  of  spirit ;  that  there  is  nothing  in  human  life ;  that 
a  person  who  is  dead  is  better  than  one  living,  and  one  not 
born  better  than  either  of  them ;  that  the  whole  world  is 
empty,  one  endless  round  of  vanity  and  vexation.  If  a 
person   is   rich,  has   many  gardens  and  much  increase,  he 


92  Beliefs  about  the  Bible, 

becomes  satiated  and  tired  of  it  all,  and  disgusted  with  life 
in  any  form.  Animals  and  man  are  about  on  the  same 
level :  the  same  things  happen  to  both ;  there  is  no  future 
for  either.  It  is  very  curious,  as  Mr.  Chadwick  has  observed 
in  a  lecture  on  this  subject,  that  a  passage  from  this  book 
intimating  that  there  is  no  future  life  is  placed  over  the 
entrance  to  Mt.  Auburn :  — "  Then  shall  the  dust  return  to 
the  earth  as  it  was,  and  the  spirit  shall  return  to  God  who 
gave  it.'*  To  any  one  familiar  with  Oriental  thought,  this 
simply  means  that  the  body  goes  back  to  the  dust,  and  the 
spirit,  that  spark  that  we  call  life,  goes  back  and  loses  its 
personality,  is  absorbed  in  the  infinite  God  from  whom  it 
came.  That  is  what  that  passage  means.  Thus,  the  Book 
of  Ecclesiastes  was  put  into  the  Jewish  canon,  and  became 
a  part  of  the  Bible  of  Christendom,  although  it  explicitly 
denies  every  tenet  of  Christianity.  The  name  of  Solomon 
floated  it  in.  But,  dreary  as  it  is,  it  represents  a  phase  of 
human  life  that  finds  its  echo  in  the  world  to-day.  It  is 
only  fair,  however,  to  say  that  the  last  two  verses  contain 
a  sentiment  so  noble  as  to  redeem  much  that  is  vastly 
inferior. 

Let  us  now  consider  perhaps  the  greatest  book  in  the  Old 
Testament,  Job.  When  was  this  written?  It  is  supposed 
that  it  was  written  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
seventh  century.  It  is  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  writer 
to  consider  the  oldest  and  the  newest  problem  of  humanity, 
perennial  in  its  interest,  mighty  in  its  hold  on  the  thoughts 
and  hopes  and  fears  of  man.  He  considers  the  question 
why  it  is  that  good  men  suffer,  why  they  are  in  sorrow  and 
trouble,  why  they  are  overthrown  and  cast  down,  why  it  is, 
if  there  is  a  righteous  government  of  the  universe,  that  there 
is  no  certain  prosperity  for  virtue  and  truth  ;  that,  in  spite  of 
the  good  man's  endeavors  to  do  right,  he  may  be  cast  down 


The    Writings.  93 

to  earth,  and  trampled  under  the  feet  of  tyranny,  selfishness, 
and  wrong.  You  will  see  the  nature  of  the  problem  to  the 
Jew,  when  you  remember  that  it  was  the  fundamental  idea 
of  his  religion  that  Yahveh  was  a  God  of  righteousness  who 
would  reward  the  virtuous.  As  they  expressed  it,  "  I  have 
never  seen  the  righteous  forsaken,  nor  his  seed  begging 
bread  "  ;  though  I  could  never  help  feeling  that  the  writer  of 
that  verse  had  had  a  narrow  experience  of  life. 

The  Jews  at  this  time  had  no  real  faith  in  any  future  life. 
There  are  no  intimations  of  it  until  toward  the  very  last, 
and  then  they  are  dim  and  indefinite.  They  teach  that  God 
will  reward  the  righteous  with  long  life,  with  health,  with 
friends,  with  many  children,  all  the  elements  of  prosperity. 
That  is  the  reward  for  serving  Yahveh.  Yet,  in  the  face  of 
this,  they  saw  the  righteous  suffering.  It  was  the  solution  of 
this  problem  that  was  in  the  mind  of  the  great  thinker  who 
wrote  this  book.  It  was  probably  written  not  long  after 
the  death  of  Josiah,  somewhere  about  641.  He  was  the 
king  above  all  others  who  was  their  ideal  for  righteousness 
and  truth,  devotion  and  service  to  Yahveh.  The  prophets 
had  long  been  saying  that,  when  they  should  have  a  king 
true  to  the  law,  who  should  put  down  idolatry,  who  should 
serve  Yahveh,  they  would  have  prosperity  and  victory  over 
their  enemies.  Here,  then,  was  a  king  faithful  and  true, 
from  first  to  last,  putting  down  idolatry,  lifting  up  the  law, 
bringing  only  good  to  Israel,  yet  killed  in  mid  career,  and 
his  people  overthrown.  No  wonder  that  this  great  loving 
heart  and  grand  poetic  brain,  the  author  of  Job,  should  be 
stunned  and  amazed  at  seeing  all  his  old  ideas  put  to  rout. 
What  does  it  mean  ?  Does  Yahveh  really  rule  and  care  for 
the  world }  If  he  does,  why  does  he  permit  such  contradic- 
tion in  human  affairs  ?  This  is  the  problem.  You  remem- 
ber the  introduction,  where  Satan  is  represented  as  appearing 


94  Beliefs   about  the  Bible, 

before  God.  The  Persian  influence  had  not  at  that  time 
affected  the  Jewish  belief,  and  Satan  had  not  developed  into 
a  hater  of  God.  He  has  access  to  the  very  court  of  God 
himself,  and  even  talks  with  the  Lord  on  his  throne.  This 
introductory  scene  may  very  likely  have  been  written  by 
other  hands :  it  does  not  settle  the  wonderful  problem  any- 
way. It  sets  forth  how  Job  is  suddenly  overthrown.  It  lets 
us  in  behind  the  scenes,  and  lets  us  hear  the  partial  solu- 
tion, though  it  is  not  what  we  should  regard  as  a  solution 
to-day. 

The  book  is  dialogue  in  form,  and  is  made  up  of  conversa- 
tions between  Job  and  the  three  friends  whom  he  calls  mis- 
erable comforters,  and  an  interpolated  speech  of  Elihu. 
Then,  Jehovah  himself  speaks.  The  speech  of  Elihu  inter- 
rupts the  dialogue,  but  it  does  not  give  the  solution  of  the 
problem.  Does  the  whole  book  settle  the  question  ?  Does 
it  give  us  any  answer  to  this  great  problem .?  Not  at  all. 
We  face  the  mystery  overhanging  the  world  from  the  begin- 
ning until  now.  When  Yahveh  appears  himself,  and  speaks 
out  of  the  whirlwind,  what  does  he  say  ?  He  does  not  give 
any  explanation.  You  have  no  right  to  question  God.  You 
must  bow  and  submit :  that  is  the  only  solution  which  the 
writer  could  discover.  As  one  of  the  Psalmists  says,  "  I  was 
dumb  :  I  opened  not  my  mouth  because  thou  didst  it."  The 
Book  of  Job  does  not  carry  us  any  further. 

Have  we  discovered  anything  to  throw  light  on  that  prob- 
lem since  ?  Only  this :  it  seems  to  me  that  the  theory  of 
evolution  hints  an  answer  such  as  the  world  has  never  dis- 
covered before,  and  which,  to  my  mind,  is  more  rational  than 
any  attempted  solutions  that  have  been  offered.  Why  do 
we  suffer .?  I  do  not  believe  we  suffer  in  order  to  test  us, 
because  the  Almighty  and  Satan  have  entered  into  a  contro- 
versy whether  we  will  cling  to  him,  if  he  puts  us  to  trial.     I 


The   Writings.  95 

do  not  believe  we  suffer  because  God  appoints  this  or  that 
amount  of  pain  to  us  on  account  of  something  we  have  done ; 
as  I  heard  a  tender-hearted  mother  saying,  "  Oh,  what  have 
I  done  that  God  has  taken  my  child  away  ? "  I  reject  that 
whole  conception  of  the  government  of  the  world.  I  do  not 
believe  that  God,  because  a  mother  does  not  go  to  church, 
or  because  she  loves  her  child  too  much,  out  of  jealousy 
sends  diphtheria  or  scarlet  fever  to  put  the  little  child  to 
death  as  a  punishment  to  her.  It  seems  to  me  infernal,  this 
conception  of  God.     I  could  not  love  a  Being  like  that. 

What  does  modern  science  tell  us  ?  Simply  this  :  that  we 
are  surrounded  on  every  hand  by  a  great  natural  order ;  that 
we  are  a  part  of  it ;  that  life  and  health  and  happiness 
come  as  the  result  of  our  conformity  to  this  law  and  order. 
If  I  keep  the  laws  of  my  physical  life  I  am  well,  if  I  break 
them  I  am  sick  \  and  neither  praying  nor  cursing  has  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  question  whether  poison  is  wholesome 
or  bread  is  injurious.  Pain  is  a  signal  marked  "  Danger,"  set 
up  along  our  pathway  on  every  hand.  If  we  step  from  this 
pathway,  consciously  or  unconsciously ;  if  we  break  a  law  vol- 
untarily or  by  the  force  of  inheritance, —  pain,  disease,  death, 
come  as  necessity.  Pain  means  broken  law.  Welfare  and 
happiness  mean  law  kept ;  and  the  result  of  this  is  to  teach 
us  progressively  through  the  ages  to  know  and  keep  the  laws 
of  the  universe,  in  which  are  life  and  peace  forevermore. 


The  Bridge  between  the  Testaments. 


As  YOU  open  any  one  of  our  common  Bibles,  you  will  find 
that  there  is  a  break  between  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
New  which  has  been  filled  by  the  binder  with  only  the  blank 
leaves  for  a  family  record.  This  break  has  been,  in  the 
popular  mind,  a  blank  for  hundreds  of  years,  as  much  so  as 
the  unwritten  leaves.  Yet  something  of  vast  moment  must 
have  happened  between  the  closing  of  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  beginning  of  the  New,  which  we  must  understand 
in  order  to  appreciate  the  movements  which  are  so  alive  on 
the  scene  of  the  New  Testament  record.  This  break  is  no 
slight  one,  as  you  will  see  when  your  attention  is  called  to 
the  dates.  The  date  of  the  prophecy  of  Malachi  is  placed 
in  the  Bible,  in  the  margin,  as  397  B.C.  That  is,  our  Bible 
gives  us  the  impression  that  the  Old  Testament  closed 
nearly  four  hundred  years  before  the  New  Testament  began. 
If  you  ascertain  the  date  of  the  first  writings  of  the  New 
Testament,  you  will  find  it  was  somewhere  between  fifty  and 
sixty  years  after  the  birth  of  Christ.  Here  is  a  gulf  appar- 
ently of  four  hundred  and  fifty  years  between  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  the  New.  It  was  years,  in  my  own  case,  before  I 
had  looked  up  this  matter  enough  to  have  any  comprehen- 
sion of  what  had  been  taking  place  during  those  centuries 
which  must  have  united  these  two  periods  of  time.  In 
order  that  you  may  see  how  important  must  have  been  the 


The  Bridge  between  the  Testaments.  97 

activities  going  on,  I  shall  ask  you  to  note  two  or  three  par- 
ticularly marked  things. 

When  the  Old  Testament  closed,  there  was  no  trace  any- 
where of  any  belief,  on  the  part  of  the  Jews,  in  any  doctrine 
of  immortality,  in  any  heaven  or  hell.  The  New  Testament 
is  full  of  both.  There  was  no  trace  anywhere,  at  the  end  of 
Malachi,  of  any  developed  doctrine  of  angels,  good  or  bad. 
The  New  Testament  is  full  of  the  hierarchies  of  good  angels, 
under  their  leader,  and,  over  against  them,  the  hierarchies  of 
bad  angels,  under  the  fully  developed  Satan,  or  Devil.  When 
we  have  finished  the  Old  Testament,  we  have  learned  nothing 
about  any  kingdom  of  heaven,  or  kingdom  of  God,  as  to  be 
expected  very  soon  on  the  earth.  The  very  first  cry  that 
meets  us  as  we  open  the  New  Testament  is,  "  The  kingdom  of 
God  is  at  hand."  When  the  Old  Testament  closes,  there  are 
almost  no  traces  an)rwhere  of  an  immediate  expectation  of 
the  Messiah.  The  New  Testament  seems  to  begin  with  the 
Messianic  cry  in  the  hearts  and  on  the  lips  of  all  the  people. 
So  the  words  "grace"  and  "sin"  and  the  idea  of  the  atone- 
ment, and  all  these  things  with  which  the  New  Testament  is 
filled,  had  found  no  clear  and  definite  expression  at  the  close, 
or  what  was  supposed  to  be  the  close,  of  the  Old  Testament 
record. 

But  there  is  danger  of  our  having  an  entire  misconception 
of  the  facts,  if  we  suppose  that  there  is  really  a  very  long 
break  between  the  records  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 
A  large  part  of  this  misconception  comes  from  the  mistakes 
that  have  been  made  in  regard  to  the  dates  of  the  records. 
For  example,  the  Old  Testament  canon  was  not  closed  397 
B.C.,  although  this  is  the  popularly  regarded  date  of  the 
prophecy  of  Malachi.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Old  Testa- 
ment canon  was  not  closed  until  after  the  destruction  of  the 
temple,  nearly  a  hundred  years  after  the  birth  of  Christ;  and 


98  Beliefs   about  the  Bible. 

it  was  closed  at  this  time,  not  because  all  those  books  which 
were  regarded  as  worthy  to  be  reckoned  in  its  number  had 
been  included,  but  because  the  destruction  of  the  temple 
and  the  dispersion  of  the  Jews  among  the  peoples,  as  the 
result  of  their  conquest  by  the  Romans,  made  it  impossible 
for  them  any  longer  to  carry  on  this  religious  and  literary 
activity.  Only  those  books,  then,  which  had  become  sacred 
in  the  minds  of  the  people  at  the  time  of  the  destruction  of 
their  nationality,  were  looked  upon  as  belonging  to  the  old 
and  sacred  period  of  their  history,  and  about  them  gathered 
this  halo  of  antiquity  and  respect  which  always  belongs  to 
those  things  which  are  revered  as  part  of  a  nation's  past. 

The  Book  of  Malachi  was  not  the  last  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Several  of  those  books  which  are  included  in  the 
canon  date  long  after  the  prophecy  of  Malachi.  The  Book 
of  Daniel,  of  Ecclesiastes,  and  several  others,  were  of  more 
recent  date  than  that  prophecy. 

There  is  a  large  body  of  literature,  the  name  of  which  you 
may  be  familiar  with,  that  has  not  been  included  in  either 
the  Old  Testament  or  the  New  by  Protestant  Christianity, 
although  a  part  has  been  accepted  by  the  Catholic  Church, 
which  fills  up  this  apparent  gulf  between  the  two  Testaments. 
This  literature  shows  a  development  of  religious  and  politi- 
cal life  among  the  Jews,  and  explains  what  must  otherwise 
be  a  great  mystery.  A  part  of  this  literature  goes  under  the 
name  of  apocalyptic  writings,  and  a  part  under  the  name  of 
apocryphal  writings.  Apocryphal  means  hidden,  and  apoca- 
lyptic means  just  the  opposite,  unfolded  or  revealed.  The 
apocalyptic  literature  was  so  named,  because  it  was  supposed 
in  some  way  to  lift  the  veil  which  hides  the  future,  and  in  a 
series  of  shadowy  outlines  to  picture  the  great  events  that 
were  to  come.  The  writers  of  these  visions  did  not  expose 
themselves  to  detection  by  being  over-definite  in  drawing  the 


The  Bridge  between  the  Testaments.  99 

outlines  of  coming  events.  They  have  written  them  in  so 
cloudy  and  indefinite  a  fashion  that  it  has  been  a  question 
with  interpreters  in  all  ages  as  to  whether  this  precise  picture 
or  that  was  supposed  to  refer  to  one  historic  event  or  another. 

The  apocryphal  literature  would  be  well  worthy  an  hour's 
study  in  your  presence,  had  we  time.  A  large  part  of  it  is 
so  very  noble,  so  splendidly  written,  so  full  of  fine  ideas,  that 
it  can  only  be  the  result  of  an  accident  that  it  is  not  a  part 
of  the  Old  Testament  itself. 

I  intimated  that  the  canon  was  closed  suddenly  by  the 
destruction  of  the  Jewish  nationality,  and  that,  but  for  this, 
the  Book  of  Ecclesiasticus,  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  the 
histories  of  the  Maccabees,  and  others  of  these  powerful 
works,  would  undoubtedly  have  appeared  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament canon.  As  we  study  these  books,  there  is  no  reason 
that  we  can  see  why  they  should  not  have  been  included,  so 
far  as  we  can  judge  of  their  intrinsic  worth.  They  are  cer- 
tainly much  superior  to  some  parts  of  the  Old  Testament. 
Some  parts  of  Ecclesiasticus  and  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon 
are  quite  equal  to  anything  that  goes  by  the  name  of  sacred 
Scripture  in  any  of  the  religious  writings  of  the  world. 

We  cannot  admit,  of  course,  that  this  apparent  break  be- 
tween the  Testaments  is  a  real  cessation  of  Jewish  life,  activ- 
ity, and  development.  We  are  now  accustomed  to  the 
modern  word  "evolution,"  to  a  belief  in  the  continuity  of 
growth, —  that  nothing  happens  suddenly,  or  without  a  cause, 
or  springs  full-grown  out  of  nothing. 

If,  for  example,  we  had  no  history  of  this  country  from 
the  time  when  the  Pilgrims  landed  until  the  Boston  harbor 
"tea-party"  or  the  battle  of  Lexington, —  if  it  was  all  un- 
written, so  that  we  left  oif  with  their  landing  at  Plymouth, 
and  began  again  at  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution, —  we 
should  have  no  sort  of  doubt  or  question  as  to  whether  there 


100  Beliefs  about   the  Bible. 

had  been  most  intense  political  and  intellectual  activity  on 
the  part  of  the  people  during  this  time.  We  should  have  to 
assume  a  line  of  continuous  development  from  one  point 
to  the  other.  Precisely  the  same  is  true  concerning  the  his- 
tory and  development  of  the  Jews.  We  cannot  understand 
the  beginning  of  the  New  Testament  life  and  literature, 
unless  we  assume  an  intense  activity  on  the  part  of  the  Jews 
during  this  period,  which  is  not  covered  by  that  which  we  are 
accustomed  to  call  sacred  literature. 

There  are  two  possible  courses  open  to  me  this  morning. 
I  could  take  up  this  apocalyptic  and  apocryphal  literature, 
and  outline  it,  giving  you  specimens  of  its  contents,  analyze 
them,  show  what  these  writers  were  thinking  about,  and  point 
out  their  effect  on  the  popular  life ;  but  this  would  lead  me 
too  far  and  into  too  minute  details,  and  would  make  the  sub- 
ject wearisome.  On  the  other  hand,  I  can  simply  give  you 
results.  I  can  tell  you  what  we  have  learned  by  studying 
this  old  history  and  literature.  I  can  tell  you  what  the  Jews 
were  doing  politically,  intellectually,  socially,  and  religiously, 
and  in  this  way  enable  your  thoughts  to  cross  this  great 
gulf  from  the  Old  Testament  to  the  New. 

Leaving  on  one  side,  then,  except  as  I  may  refer  to  it  inci- 
dentally, this  whole  mass  of  literature,  I  will  give  you,  in  as 
brief  and  clear  outline  as  I  can,  the  history  of  what  the  Jews 
■were  doing  during  this  most  important  period  of  their  his- 
tory and  development. 

In  the  first  place,  let  me  tell  you  the  political  vicissitudes 
through  which  they  passed,  because  these  led  the  way  to  the 
other  changes ;  and  it  is  necessary  to  know  them,  in  order  to 
comprehend  their  later  movements. 

When  the  Jews  first  returned  from  the  Babylonish  captiv- 
ity, they  were  under  a  Persian  protectorate.  That  is,  these 
exiles  returned  home  by  permission  of  the  Persian  king,  and 


The  Bridge  between  the  Testaments,  lOi 

under  the  escort  and  guidance  of  Persians,  protected  by  Per- 
sian power.  They  were  permitted  by  Persian  authority  to 
rebuild  their  temple,  and  to  renew,  as  far  as  possible,  their 
old-time  life.  They  were  under  this  power  continuously,  and 
at  peace  for  a  long  number  of  years.  They  enjoyed  practi- 
cal independence  during  that  time.  The  Persians  were  so 
far  away  that  the  kings  did  not  care  to  interfere  with  them, 
and  they  were  allowed  to  develop  according  to  their  own 
ideas.  Their  chief  priest,  or  high  priest,  was  practically  the 
supreme  power.  Of  course,  if  any  conflict  arose,  the  people 
would  have  the  right  to  appeal  to  Persia,  so  that  the  Persian 
king  was  the  ultimate  authority  in  all  political  questions ;  but, 
practically,  the  Jews  were  independent.  They  remained  in 
this  way  until  that  young  Grecian  king,  Alexander,  started 
in  his  great  career  of  conquest.  On  his  way  to  the  East,  he 
took  Jerusalem  as  one  of  the  great  cities  in  his  course,  and 
conquered  the  Judaean  power,  bringing  it  to  his  feet  and 
leaving  it  as  one  of  his  subjects,  while  he  went  farther  east 
to  break  down  the  entire  Persian  rule  in  all  its  range. 

After  Alexander's  death,  this  great  world-wide  kingdom 
broke  up  into  four  pieces.  Judaea  fell  to  the  share  of  Ptol- 
emy, the  ruler  of  Egypt  j  and,  for  a  long  time,  we  find  Judaea 
a  dependency  of  Egypt.  About  this  time,  the  great  city 
of  Alexandria  was  built  as  the  capital  of  the  Ptolemies.  It 
soon  became  one  of  the  most  famous  cities  of  the  world, 
the  seat  of  commerce  and  of  literature.  It  was  one  of  the 
great  centres  of  learning,  and  exerted  an  influence  throughout 
the  world.  It  was  a  great  cosmopolitan  city.  Greeks, 
Romans,  Jews,  Egyptians,  Orientals  of  every  name,  centred 
here,  and  formed  this  great  seething,  political,  intellectual, 
and  religious  life.  It  was  during  the  reign  of  the  Ptolemies 
that  the  Old  Testament  was  translated  into  the  Greek  ver- 
sion called  the  Septuagint.     This  Greek  translation  of  the 


102  Beliefs  about   the   Bible. 

Old  Testament  is  the  one  that  is  always  referred  to  in  the 
New  Testament,  when  quotations  are  made  there.  So  that, 
if  you  find  that  these  quotations  are  different  from  the  Old 
Testament,  you  may  understand  this  difference,  by  remember- 
ing that  they  quoted  from  the  Septuagint,  which  sometimes 
differs  in  words  and  phrases  from  the  ordinary  reading  of  the 
Hebrew. 

After  the  Jews  had  been  under  the  reign  of  the  Ptolemies 
in  Egypt,  they  passed  under  a  new  conqueror,  the  Syrian 
kings,  or  dynasty  of  the  Seleucidae,  of  whom  the  representa- 
tive at  that  time  was  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  or  Antiochus  the 
brilliant,  who  was  nicknamed,  on  account  of  his  strange  and 
unaccountable  ways,  Epimanes,  or  the  madman.  He  did 
everything  he  could  to  denationalize  the  Jews.  He  abolished 
their  temple  worship.  He  made  it  obligatory  upon  every 
Jew  to  worship  the  gods  of  Greece  and  the  gods  of  Greece 
alone.  He  did  everything  he  could  to  pour  contempt  on 
the  temple,  even  going  so  far  as  to  sacrifice  swine  upon  the 
altar,  the  last  and  extremest  indignity,  in  the  eye  of  a  Jew, 
which  could  be  committed  against  his  national  worship. 

He  not  only  sacrificed  this  animal  upon  the  altar  of  the 
temple,  but,  making  a  broth  of  the  remains,  he  sprinkled  it 
over  their  sacred  books  and  utensils,  doing  whatever  he 
could  to  defile  everything  that  they  called  sacred.  He 
carried  this  so  far,  however,  that  he  defeated  the  very  pur- 
pose he  had  in  view;. for  one  day,  as  a  renegade  Jew  was 
about  to  offer  a  pagan  sacrifice,  Mattathias  rushed  on  him 
and  slew  him.  This  started  a  revolution,  which  ran  like 
wild-fire  all  over  the  country.  It  resulted  in  the  Jews  attain- 
ing their  freedom,  and  becoming  a  nation  again  by  them- 
selves. The  son  of  Mattathias,  Judas,  the  Hammer,  as  he 
was  called,  became  king.  He  beat  his  enemies  to  pieces, 
established  a  new  dynasty,  and  for  many  years   the  Jews 


The  Bridge  between  the  Testaments.  103 

ruled  themselves,  and  were  independent.  But,  by  and  by,  they 
formed  an  alliance  with  that  new  power  in  the  West,  which 
was  so  soon  destined  to  rule  the  whole  world.  When  two 
rival  claimants  for  the  Jewish  throne  were  quarrelling  as  to 
the  succession,  Rome  stepped  in,  and  assumed  a  protector- 
ate, which  meant  their  subjection ;  and,  from  that  time  on  to 
the  destruction  of  the  Jewish  city,  Judaea  was  only  a  province 
of  the  Roman  Empire,  ruled  a  part  of  the  time  by  kings 
appointed  in  Rome,  a  part  of  the  time  by  Roman  procurators 
and  other  officers  of  the  Empire. 

So  much  for  an  outline  of  the  political  history.  You  see 
how  active  were  those  times  concerning  which  we  have  known 
so  very  little,  and  how  and  what  were  the  influences  at  work 
which  mingled  not  only  the  nationalities,  but  the  philosophies 
and  religions  of  the  world  in  such  a  way  as  to  prepare  for 
the  development  of  a  new  religion. 

Mark  for  a  moment  how  these  influences  were  at  work. 
Here  were  brought  together,  in  these  great  cities  of  Rome 
and  Alexandria,  peoples  from  all  over  the  world,  each  with 
its  own  religion,  each  worshipping  its  own  separate  gods. 
And  as  they  grew  wiser,  and  thought  more  deeply  about  this 
subject,  do  you  not  see  how  scepticism  must  have  resulted  .5* 
Whose  god  was  the  true  one  'i  Here  were  a  hundred  gods ; 
here  were  many  religions  represented  in  these  great  cities. 
A  man  could  take  his  choice,  and  worship  this  or  that ;  but 
it  was  impossible  for  him  to  believe  in  them  all.  When  the 
question  was  raised,  Which  one  shall  I  believe  in?  the 
answer  was  likely  to  be.  In  none.  The  system  each  religion 
represented  was  so  vulnerable,  the  gods  were  so  clearly  only 
the  idealizations  of  national  hopes  and  aspirations,  that  the 
people  of  no  one  nation  could  receive  the  gods  of  another ; 
and  so  they  finally  ceased  to  be  respected,  even  by  their  own 
followers. 


I04  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

The  systems  of  philosophy  and  all  the  ideas  of  the  world 
were  also  brought  together  and  compared  one  with  another, 
so  that  they  might  be  comprehended,  that  they  might  be 
tested,  to  see  which  were  capable  of  standing. 

Among  the  great  movements  going  on  in  the  intellectual 
development  of  the  Jews  was  the  attempt  to  reconcile  the 
doctrines  of  Judaism  with  the  great  philosophies  of  Greece. 
Philo,  who  lived  in  Alexandria,  a  Jewish  scholar  of  the 
century  preceding  the  birth  of  Christ,  is  the  most  distin- 
guished name  of  this  epoch  of  Jewish  life.  He  spent  his 
life  in  endeavoring  to  reconcile  the  philosophy  of  Plato,  with 
the  Old  Testament  ideas,  attempting  to  find  traces  in  these 
higher  pagan  philosophies  of  some  primitive  revelation  that 
should  bring  their  thought  into  connection  with  that  of  his 
old-time  fathers.  Out  of  this  fusion  of  ideas  sprang  many 
of  those  conceptions  which  became  living  forces  in  the 
New  Testament  thought  and  in  the  development  of  the 
young  Christianity.  Not  only  was  there  a  fusion  of  Jewish 
and  Grecian  ideas,  but  also  of  Oriental  and  Gnostic  specula- 
tions. These  philosophies  were  compared,  and  possible 
relations  sought  out ;  and  thus  there  was  formed  in  the  popu- 
lar mind  a  preparation  for  a  new  development,  something  to 
come  that  had  not  yet  been  understood  or  known. 

I  wish  now  to  point  out  one  or  two  other  lines  of  growth 
which  were  going  on  in  the  Jewish  mind  and  life. 

As  we  open  the  New  Testament,  we  find  everywhere  men- 
tion of  the  synagogues.  Jesus,  whenever  he  visits  any  little 
town,  goes  into  the  synagogue ;  and,  when  the  roll  of  Old 
Scripture  is  unfolded  and  read,  he  rises  and  speaks  to  the 
people.  There  is  no  trace  of  a  synagogue  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. This,  then,  is  an  entirely  new  development  in  re- 
ligion. Between  the  time  when  the  Old  Testament  closed 
and  the  New  began,  the  synagogue  had  arisen.     It  occupied 


The  Bridge  between  the  Testaments.  105 

a  large  part  of  the  national  life, —  larger  than  even  the  tem- 
ple worship.  Every  little  village  had  its  synagogue ;  and, 
in  Jerusalem,  they  could  be  counted  by  the  hundred.  There 
were  as  many  synagogues  as  there  are  churches  in  the  most 
populous  of  our  Christian  countries  to-day.  What  were 
they  ?  Simply  little  meeting-houses  ;  places  where  the  peo- 
ple came  together  on  the  Sabbath  day,  and  listened  to  the 
reading  of  the  Old  Testament  scriptures.  And  then,  after 
the  reading,  just  as  in  a  modern  Quaker  meeting,  any  one 
was  at  liberty  to  stand  up  and  comment  on  the  passage  that 
had  been  read,  and  give  utterance  to  whatever  religious 
opinions  or  thoughts  he  might  have  in  his  mind.  This  devel- 
opment bears  in  a  most  important  way  upon  the  growth  of 
the  Christian  Church.  The  synagogue  is  the  direct  parent 
and  predecessor  of  the  Christian  Church.  It  is  undoubtedly 
true  that,  if  there  had  never  been  a  synagogue,  there  never 
would  have  been  a  church  j  if  there  never  had  been  a  scribe, 
there  never  would  have  been  a  minister ;  for  the  scribe  was 
attached  to  the  synagogue,  and  was  the  man  who  copied  or 
made  the  rolls  of  the  Law,  the  man  whose  business  it  was 
to  understand  the  Law  and  interpret  it  to  the  people.  The 
Law,  as  you  know,  is  in  the  old  Hebrew ;  and  at  this  time  the 
Hebrew  language  had  ceased  to  be  spoken  or  written  by  the 
people.  The  common  language  was  the  Aramaic.  It  was 
spoken  by  Jesus  and  his  apostles.  It  was  neither  Hebrew 
nor  Greek,  but  a  new  dialect.  The  Scripture  passages  were 
read  and  translated,  and  comments  made  upon  them  by  the 
scribe ;  and  you  therefore  see  how  naturally  his  work  pre- 
cedes that  which  the  Christian  minister  has  done  for  the  last 
eighteen  hundred  years. 

Along  with  this  development  of  the  synagogue,  this  sort 
of  communal  religious  life  of  the  people,  there  was  a  devel- 
opment of  sects  and  parties  among  the  Jews  that  we  need 


io6  Beliefs  about   the  Bible, 

to  understand.  There  are,  in  the  later  time,  references  to 
the  Sadducees,  the  Pharisees,  scribes,  lawyers,  Hellenists,  or 
Grecians,  the  Herodians,  and  the  Essenes.  In  the  Old 
Testament,  you  find  no  traces  of  any  of  them.  They  had 
all  grown  up  during  this  time  between  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  New. 

What  were  these  parties  1  We  are  accustomed  to  speak  of 
the  Sadducees  as  sceptics.  I  think  this  is  the  popular  idea 
of  them, —  that  they  were  the  New  Testament  sceptics. 

We  are  accustomed  to  say  that  they  did  not  believe  in  any 
thing, —  that  they  did  not  believe  in  angels,  in  a  resurrection, 
nor  in  any  future  life.  Yet  we  shall  make  a  capital  mistake, 
if  we  think  of  them  as  sceptics  at  all.  The  Sadducees  were 
simply  the  old,  respectable,  titled,  wealthy  conservatives 
among  the  Jews.  They  were  typical  conservatives.  They 
did  not  believe  in  angels,  or  the  resurrection,  or  spirits,  or 
the  future  life.  Why  ?  Because  the  Old  Scriptures,  which 
they  stood  by,  and  were  ready  to  fight  for  through  thick  and 
thin,  did  not  teach  any  of  these  ideas.  They  stood  by  the 
Law,  by  Moses,  by  all  that  which  was  oldest  and  most 
respectable  in  national  life.  They  rejected  all  these  new- 
fangled ideas,  as  they  regarded  them. 

Who  were  the  Pharisees  ?  I  used  to  think  of  them  as  the 
conservatives,  but  they  were  the  precise  opposites.  They 
were  the  popular  party  that  was  ready  to  accept  new  ideas. 
They  represented  best  the  national  life  of  the  time.  They 
were  the  ones  who  not  only  believed  in  Moses,  but  in  the 
traditions  ;  and  the  traditions  gave  them  an  opportunity  to 
incorporate  into  their  belief,  and  to  accept  as  a  part  of  their 
religious  convictions,  a  thousand  things  that  the  Old  Script- 
ures never  had  said.  They  were  the  popular  party  among 
the  people. 

I  have  told  you  who  the  scribes  were.     The  lawyers  were 


The  Bridge  between  the  Testaments.  107 

substantially  the  same  as  the  scribes, — not  lawyers  like  ours 
of  to-day,  but  interpreters  of  the  Old  Testament  law. 

The  Hellenists  formed  a  party  which  would  naturally 
spring  up  as  they  came  into  contact  with  Grecian  ideas  and 
learning.  They  believed  that  they  ought  to  break  down 
their  Jewish  exclusiveness,  that  they  ought  to  study  Hel- 
lenistic literature.  They  were  of  course  very  unpopular 
with  those  who  believed  in  keeping  exclusively  the  old  ideas 
and  old-time  national  life. 

Then  there  was  the  great  party  of  the  Essenes,  only  re- 
ferred to  incidentally  in  the  New  Testament.  They  lived  a 
life  of  seclusion.  They  were  something  like  the  modern 
Shakers,  very  simple  and  pure  in  manners,  hospitable  and 
gentle.  They  have  been  suspected  of  being  connected  in 
some  way  with  Oriental  ideas,  perhaps  with  Buddhism ;  and 
it  is  a  serious  question  whether  they  have  not  had  more  to 
do  with  the  Christian  Church  than  they  have  had  credit  for. 
It  is  at  least  a  curious  fact  that,  as  soon  as  churches  sprang 
up  all  through  the  Roman  Empire,  the  little  sect  of  the 
Essenes  disappeared,  and  were  never  seen  again. 

Passing  from  a  consideration  of  these  sects  among  the 
Jews,  let  me  give  you  a  little  more  definite  idea  as  to  where 
a  great  many  of  the  popular  ideas  in  the  New  Testament 
came  from,  and  how  they  came  into  being  during  this  period 
of  which  we  have  so  little  record  in  our  hands.  I  refer  to 
the  theories  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  of  angels,  of  the 
resurrection,  of  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man  in  the  clouds 
of  heaven,  of  the  judgment,  of  heaven  and  hell,  and  all 
these  things  which  are  so  common  now  in  Christian  thought. 
There  is  no  trace  of  them,  as  I  have  told  you,  in  the  Old 
Testament.  Where  did  they  come  from  ?  They  were  not, 
the  larger  part  of  them,  native  developments  of  Jewish 
thought  alone.     Nearly  all  of  them  were  borrowed  from  the 


io8  Beliefs  about   the   Bible. 

Persian.  They  were  the  results  of  the  life  which  the  Jews 
led  during  their  captivity.  Among  the  Persians,  and  the 
Oriental  nations  from  whom  the  Persians  themselves  derived 
many  of  their  ideas,  these  conceptions  were  full-grown  per- 
haps before  the  time  of  Moses  himself. 

Very  soon  after  the  coming  home  of  the  Jews  from  Babylon 
there  crept  into  their  thought  this  belief  of  a  great  hierarchy 
of  angels  good  and  bad  in  perpetual  conflict.  From  this 
comes  the  idea  of  the  New  Testament  devil  in  perpetual 
conflict  with  God.  We  find,  growing  up  in  the  apocalyptic 
books,  especially  in  Enoch,  which  is  full  of  these  ideas,  the 
full  development  of  a  belief  in  a  judgment  to  come,  of 
Messiah  coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven,  in  a  separation  of 
the  good  and  the  bad  after  that  judgment,  of  an  eternity 
of  blessedness  and  an  eternity  of  punishment,  expressed  in 
almost  the  same  language  which  we  find  afterward  on  the 
lips  of  Jesus  himself.  Almost  all  these  ideas  were  appar- 
ently developed  from  seeds  which  were  planted  in  Jewish 
thought  during  the  time  the  Jews  came  in  contact  with  the 
great  Persian  power. 

I  want  to  lay  the  emphasis  of  this  part  of  my  theme  on  the 
question  of  the  Messiah  and  the  part  it  played  in  Jewish 
thought  and  life.  If  there  had  been  no  dream  of  a  Messiah, 
there  would  have  been  no  Christianity.  It  is  very  impor- 
tant, then,  to  inquire  where  this  idea  came  from,  and  how 
much  it  had  to  do  with  the  development  of  their  later  thought 
and  life. 

If  we  confine  ourselves  to  the  Old  Testament,  we  find  no 
clear  doctrine  of  a  Messiah  at  all.  We  do  find  this,  how- 
ever, which  was  a  preparation  of  the  soil  for  the  reception 
of  the  seed,  which  developed  into  the  thought  of  the  Mes- 
siah. The  Jews  believed  —  and  it  was  necessary,  holding 
the  idea  of   God  and  his  government  that  they  did  —  that 


The  Bridge  between  the  Testaments.  109 

they  were  to  be  prospered,  that  a  kingdom  was  to  be  estab- 
lished which  should  be  permanently  blessed,  whenever  the 
time  should  come  that  the  people  were  faithful  to  the  law  of 
their  God.  They  did  not  believe  in  any  future  life :  they 
believed  in  prosperity  in  this  life  as  a  reward  of  goodness. 
Here  is  the  germ  which  developed  into  the  doctrine  of  the 
Messiah ;  but  there  is  no  trace  of  their  believing  in  the 
coming  of  any  personal  king,  only  that  the  kingdom  after 
the  idea  of  David's  rule  should  be  restored.  But  this  idea 
of  a  pre-existent  Angel-Messiah,  who  should  come  as  the 
angel  of  God  to  rule  the  world,  was  a  common  Persian 
thought ;  and  I  believe  that  this  idea  among  the  Jews  can 
be  traced  to  their  connection  with  this  Oriental  religion. 
Here,  then,  we  find  the  next  great  step  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
Messianic  idea. 

The  next  step  is  simply  to  identify  this  supposed  super- 
natural being  with  some  one  actually  come.  You  will  see 
then  why  it  was  that,  when  Jesus  was  born,  the  people  were 
expecting  the  coming  of  the  Messiah.  They  were  being  true, 
as  never  before,  to  the  law  of  Jehovah.  They  believed,  ac- 
cording to  the  fundamental  idea  of  their  religion,  that  this 
must  bring  them  prosperity.  They  had  accepted  the  idea 
that  a  kingdom  was  to  come,  and  that  some  one  sent  of  God, 
either  a  divine  or  an  ideal  man,  was  to  rule  over  the  chosen 
people ;  that  he  was  to  come  and  sit  in  judgment  on  all  the 
earth ;  that  the  dead  were  to  be  raised,  and  that  the  end  of 
the  world  was  to  come  ;  and  that  he  was  to  usher  in  a  new  and 
grand  heavenly  kingdom  that  should  be  without  end.  They 
were  looking  then  on  every  hand  for  the  Messiah.  It  was  Lo 
here !  and  Lo  there !  And  the  first  thing  asked  of  Jesus, 
when  he  preached  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  was  at  hand, 
was,  Art  thou  the  Messiah,  the  one  we  have  expected  .»*  or 
shall  we  look  for  another  ?     So,  if  Jesus  was  to  play  any  part 


no  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

in  bringing  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  he  must  be  considered 
as  this  expected  Messiah.  The  role  of  Messiah  was  thrust 
upon  him.  He  was  to  be  the  agent  of  God  to  bring  in  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.     The  people  would  accept  no  other. 

I  believe,  then,  that  the  time  had  come,  in  the  history  of 
the  world,  when  a  new  religion  had  to  be  born.  The  people 
had  lost  faith  in  the  old  ones.  They  had  lost  faith  in  their 
old  philosophy,  in  all  their  old  conceptions  of  God  and  man. 
There  was  an  earnest  expectation  on  the  part  of  the  people 
all  over  the  world  of  some  new  development  of  another  type, 
and  a  higher  type,  of  life.  So  I  believe  that,  if  Jesus  had 
never  been  born,  we  should  have  had  Christianity'  still,  or 
something  substantially  like  it.  For  the  ideas  and  anticipa- 
tions of  Christianity  were  in  the  popular  heart  and  mind, 
filling  all  the  air.  It  only  needed  that  they  should  centre  in 
or  crystallize  about  some  person  who  should  be  accepted  as 
the  Messiah ;  and,  had  this  person  not  been  Jesus,  some  other 
person  must  be  found.  I  think  this  is  clear,  when  we  study 
the  writings  of  Paul.  Paul  is  the  actual  father  of  historic 
Christianity;  but  Paul  never  saw  Jesus,  except  in  a  vision. 
He  says  very  little  about  what  Jesus  said  or  did.  His  writ- 
ings are  full  of  the  ideal  Messiah,  but  he  takes  almost  no 
note  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  It  is  this  new  revelation  from 
God,  this  new  head  of  a  new  Christianity,  with  which  Paul 
deals.  Thus,  we  find  all  these  influences,  which  had  been  a/ 
work  during  the  time  of  which  we  have  no  record  in  oui 
Scriptures,  culminating  at  last,  naturally  and  necessarily,  in 
the  birth  of  a  new  religion,  and  that  new  religion  the  one  that 
we  call  Christian. 


THE  EPISTLES. 


As  WE  come  from  the  Old  Testament  to  the  New,  we  notice 
that  there  are  four  Gospels  and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
that  lead  the  list  of  those  books  that  have  come  to  be 
regarded  as  canonical.  It  is  worthy  your  note,  in  passing, 
that  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  does  not  treat  in  any  general 
way  of  the  doings  of  the  twelve  apostles,  but  only  concerns 
itself  with  certain  passages  in  the  life  chiefly  of  Peter  and 
Paul.     The  significance  of  that  I  shall  refer  to  later. 

As  I  wish  to  treat  of  the  New  Testament,  in  a  general 
way  in  the  order  of  time,  rather  than  the  order  in  which  the 
publishers  have  happened  to  place  the  books,  I  pass  by  the 
Gospels  and  the  Acts  and  come  to  the  Epistles ;  for  you  are 
probably  aware  of  the  fact  that  nearly  all  the  Epistles,  the 
principal  ones  most  certainly,  were  written  some  time  before 
any  of  the  Gospels  were  brought  into  their  present  condition. 

When  the  First  Epistle  was  written,  which  was  probably 
the  first  Epistle  of  Paul  to  the  Church  in  Thessalonica, 
Jesus  had  been  dead  but  about  twenty  years.  That  is,  the 
people  were  then  about  as  far  away  from  his  time  as  we  are 
from  the  time  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and,  of  course,  there 
would  be  a  great  many  persons  alive  who  had  either  seen 
Jesus,  or  who  had  seen  somebody  that  had  seen  him, — 
enough  to  keep  alive  and  fresh  the  traditions  of  the  princi- 
pal events  in  his  life,  the  principal  phases  of  his  doctrine,. 


112  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

and  the  generally  believed  account  of  his  death.  We  must 
bear  in  mind,  however,  all  the  way  through,  that  these  early 
churches  did  not  believe  that  Jesus  was  really  dead,  but 
only  that  he  had  been  withdrawn  into  the  heavens  for  a 
little  time,  whence  he  was  to  return  again  in  the  clouds, 
accompanied  by  an  innumerable  retinue  of  angels,  to  raise 
the  dead,  to  judge  the  world,  and  to  usher  in  the  new  king- 
dom of  God  which  he  was  to  establish  here  upon  earth.  I 
refer  to  this  only  to  show  you  the  general  intellectual  and 
religious  atmosphere  of  the  time  when  these  Epistles  were 
written. 

There  is  another  point  to  be  noted.  You  will  iind  that 
these  letters  are  written  to  the  Church  in  Philippi,  to  the 
Church  in  Ephesus,  to  the  Church  in  Galatia,  to  the  Church 
in  Rome,  etc.  That  is,  and  this  is  the  point,  the  first 
churches,  as  we  should  naturally  expect,  were  organized  in 
the  great  cities  scattered  over  the  Roman  Empire,  the  princi- 
pal centres  of  intellectual  life  and  thought.  I  refer  to  this, 
so  as  to  bring  you  into  sympathy  with  the  natural  growth 
of  these  churches,  that  you  may  see  how,  under  ordinary 
human  laws,  they  happened  to  be  what  they  were. 

In  process  of  time,  those  who  rejected  the  claims  of  Chris- 
tianity came  to  be  called  pagans  and  heathen.  Did  you  ever 
think  why  ?  The  word  "  pagan  "  is  from  a  Latin  word  paga- 
nuSy  which  means  a  villager.  The  word  "  heathen  "  is  simply 
heath-men,  men  who  lived  out  on  the  heath,  peasants.  This 
suggestion  is  mainly  interesting,  as  I  think,  because  it  lets  us 
into  the  secret,  which  is  true  to-day  just  as  it  was  then,  that 
any  new  movement  always  finds  its  first  footing  in  the  town, 
where  thought  is  most  active,  where  opinions  are  most  fluent, 
where  it  is  easier  to  get  a  hearing  for  a  new  idea,  and  where 
a  new  thought  first  finds  lodgement  in  the  minds  and  activi- 
ties of  men.     However  sturdy  and  noble  and  grand  the  coun- 


The  Epistles.  113 

try  may  be  in  the  make-up  of  its  moral  fibre,  yet  it  is  always 
a  little  behind  the  town.  Just  as  last  year's  fashions  are  this 
year's  fashions  in  the  country,  so  the  intellectual  and  relig- 
ious fashions  follow  this  same  law :  they  start  in  the  centre 
of  intellectual  activity,  and  then  spread  slowly  toward  the 
country. 

These  churches,  then,  these  new  organizations,  were  dotted 
here  and  there  over  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  great  centres 
of  commercial  and  intellectual  activity.  They  were  not,  as 
yet, —  between  50  and  60  A.D.,  when  the  first  Epistles  were 
written, —  very  numerous,  very  large,  or  very  powerful. 

These  little  churches  were  simply  made  up  of  the  few  men 
who  had  accepted  the  claims  of  the  new  Messiah,  and  who, 
while  they  were  waiting  for  his  immediate  return, —  for  both 
Jesus  and  Paul  taught  explicitly  that  he  was  to  come  back 
before  that  generation  had  entirely  passed  away, —  would 
naturally  place  little  emphasis  on  the  affairs  of  this  world. 
It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  they  established  practical 
communism,  selling  their  houses  and  lands,  just  as  in  modern 
times  Millerites  have  done,  believing  that  the  world  was  com- 
ing to  an  end  in  three,  five,  or  ten  years.  What  was  the  use 
of  laying  out  schemes  of  business,  plans  for  the  regeneration 
of  this  world,  social  or  political  improvements  ?  What  was  the 
use  of  being  troubled,  if  Caesar  was  a  tyrant  and  was  ruling  the 
world  ?  What  was  the  use  of  mourning  about  these  things  ? 
So  Paul  tells  them  not  to  be  troubled,  for  the  time  is  short, 
and  the  end  is  at  hand.  Therefore,  they  sold  their  property, 
and  tried  to  make  one  another  as  comfortable  as  possible, 
establishing  these  Tittle  brotherhoods  in  the  great  centres 
of  activity,  and  then,  laboring  and  doing  their  daily  duty  as 
best  they  could,  awaited  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
with  its  heavenly  magnificence  and  glory.  In  the  face  of  a 
belief  like  that,  of  course  it  would  not  occur  to  any  one  to 


114  Beliefs  about  the   Bible. 

write  any  Gospels.  What  did  they  want  of  Gospels  ?  The 
people  who  were  living  already  knew  about  Jesus,  and  some 
of  them  were  to  live  until  he  came  again.  So  they  did  not 
take  the  trouble  to  make  any  record  of  his  life  and  teachings 
at  that  time. 

But  you  will  see  how  naturally  the  Epistles  arose.  Here 
were  these  churches,  perplexed  on  every  hand  by  practical 
questions.  They  had  just  come  out  of  heathenism.  In  those 
days,  if  you  were  to  dine  with  a  heathen,  the  chances  were 
that  he  would  go  through  some  religious  ceremony  preceding 
the  feast,  to  consecrate  the  animal  that  he  was  to  l\ave  for 
his  dinner.  It  was  a  very  vital  question,  then,  whether  the 
new  Christians  were  to  be  permitted  to  attend  such  feasts,  and 
eat  the  meat  that  had  been  offered  to  idols ;  whether  in  so 
doing  they  became  accomplices  in  idolatry.  You  remember 
how  often  Paul  refers  to  this.  They  questioned,  also, 
whether  it  was  necessary  to  keep  the  Mosaic  law,  and  they 
looked  to  their  leaders  for  answers.  Those  who  had  seen 
Jesus,  or  who  had  received  traditions  of  him  from  others' 
lips,  could  have  him  for  guidance  in  this  matter ;  but  others 
did  not  know  just  what  they  were  required  to  believe,  and 
all  sorts  of  practical  questions  would  naturally  spring  up 
while  they  were  waiting  for  his  second  coming.  It  was  to 
answer  these  difficulties  and  to  solve  these  practical  problems 
that  the  Epistles  came  to  be  written. 

We  must  remember  another  thing.  It  is  absurd  for  any- 
body to  suppose  that  Paul  or  Peter  or  James,  or  any  of  the 
writers  of  the  Epistles,  ever  had  the  slightest  idea  that  these 
letters  would  become  a  part  of  a  book,  to  be  referred  to  as 
a  standard  of  belief  and  doctrine  eighteen  hundred  years 
after  that  time.  And  this  absurdity  appears  in  what  I  have 
already  stated,  that  they  expected  the  world  to  come  to 
an  end  before  the  people  who  wrote  the  letters  were  dead. 


The  Epistles.  115 

They  expected  Jesus  to  come  again  to  earth,  and  reign  again 
as  their  king,  for  at  least  a  thousand  years.  This  idea  is 
still  thrilling  and  throbbing  through  parts  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, especially  the  Apocalypse,  or  the  Book  of  Revelation. 
It  is  all  on  tiptoe  with  this  upward  and  onward  looking 
for  the  coming  of  the  Lord.  When  Jesus  should  come, 
there  would  be  no  reason,  and  almost  no  need,  of  any 
book  to  announce  his  will;  for  he  himself  would  be  the 
living  king,  dispensing  his  own  law  and  executing  his  own 
judgments. 

These  letters,  then,  were  simply  temporary  and  local  expe- 
dients to  meet  the  exigencies  of  that  time.  If  you  read 
them  carefully  in  the  light  of  that  idea,  you  will  find  nearly 
all  your  perplexities  solved.  It  is  not  my  purpose  to  go  into 
minute  criticism  of  one  Epistle  after  another.  Instead  of 
any  textual  criticism,  I  wish  to  give  some  general  ideas  for 
which  they  stand ;  but  it  is  worth  my  while  to  point  otu 
first  one  or  two  significant  facts  concerning  a  few  of  them. 

Take  the  little  Epistle  of  Jude.  Jude  says  that  he  was  the 
brother  of  James.  He  was  not  himself  an  apostle,  but,  per- 
haps, the  brother  of  an  apostle.  There  is  one  thing  in  that 
little  letter  which  of  itself  is  sufficient  to  forever  render 
absurd  any  claim  for  the  entire  infallibility  of  the  Bible.  I 
have  spoken  to  a  great  many  orthodox  ministers  concerning 
it,  who  had  never  had  their  attention  called  to  it.  I  spoke 
to  you  last  Sunday  concerning  the  Book  of  Enoch, —  a  wild, 
crude,  unreliable,  apocalyptic  book,  written  within  a  hundred 
years  of  the  time  of  Christ.  Jude  quotes  it  as  being  the 
work  of  the  old  patriarch,  "the  seventh  from  Adam."  Here 
is  a  palpable  blunder. 

The  Epistle  of  James  was  written  apparently  to  offset 
Paul's  doctrine  of  "justification  by  faith."  James  evidently 
thought  Paul  was  pushing  that  too  far.     He  said  it  was  well 


Ii6  Beliefs   about   the  Bible. 

enough  to  have  faith,  but  you  must  supplement  faith  and 
manifest  the  reality  of  that  faith  by  works,  or  it  becomes 
dead  and  fruitless.  This  was  the  first  general  contribution 
to  the  seething  discussion  of  the  age. 

There  is  no  occasion  for  me  to  say  anything  concerning 
the  three  Epistles  of  John,  except  that  there  is  little  reason 
to  suppose  John  the  Apostle  wrote  them.  Neither  need  I 
detain  you  with  a  special  reference  to  the  writings  known  as 
the  Epistles  of  Peter.  The  second  certainly  was  not  written 
by  him,  and  it  is  doubtful  about  the  first ;  but  it  makes  little 
difference  to  us. 

Concerning  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  ordinarily  called 
the  work  of  Paul,  there  is  hardly  a  scholar  in  the  world  who 
thinks  that  Paul  wrote  it.  It  devotes  itself  to  an  endeavor 
to  justify  Christianity  to  those  who  had  come  out  from  the 
Jewish  Church.  It  shows  how  the  old  dispensation  was 
preparatory  to  Christianity;  that  every  thing  prefigured  it; 
that  it  represented  the  symbol  and  shadow  of  which  Chris- 
tianity is  the  substance  and  reality.  This,  you  will  see,  must 
have  met  a  very  pressing  need  or  want  at  that  time,  when 
one  of  the  most  important  and  practical  questions  of  the 
Jew  was  whether,  when  he  became  a  Christian,  he  was  false 
to  the  old  and  divine  dispensation  which  had  been  given  to 
his  fathers. 

I  wish  now  to  confine  myself  entirely  to  the  attitude  and 
work  of  Paul.  Paul  is  the  great  name  in  historic  Christian- 
ity, second  only  in  rank  and  dignity  to  that  of  Jesus,  and 
not  even  second  to  him  in  the  power  which  he  has  exerted 
over  thought.  Instead,  however,  of  going  into  a  general 
examination  of  the  Epistles,  I  want,  in  some  general,  graphic 
way,  to  give  you  Paul's  attitude  toward  the  universe,  to  set 
forth  the  scheme  which  he  held,  and  which  he  made  a  vital 
power  in  the  development  of  civilization.     There  is  no  man 


The  Epistles.  11/ 

in  all  the  past  ages  more  alive  to-day  than  Paul,  or  who  is 
having  more  to  do  with  men  that  have  never  thought  very 
much  about  it,  and  who  have  least  appreciated  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  work  which  he  wrought. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  my  purpose  that  I  should  discuss 
all  the  questions  that  have  been  mooted  by  the  critics  as  to 
whether  he  wrote  all  the  Epistles  that  have  passed  under  his 
name.  It  does  not  make  any  special  difference  to  our 
consideration,  for  the  doctrines  we  care  to  note  are  taught 
in  the  Epistles  which  are  undoubtedly  his. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  in  order  to  understand  this  Pauline 
doctrine,  you  must  remember  that  he  was  a  grand,  sturdy, 
unfaltering  believer  in  predestination  of  the  most  cast-iron 
sort.  No  man  who  ever  lived  has  taught  it  more  explicitly 
and  clearly  than  he.  God  is  the  absolute  sovereign,  and  he 
has  a  right  through  all  the  eternities  to  do  whatever  he  will ; 
and  puny,  short-sighted  man  has  no  right  to  question  it. 
This  is  the  attitude  of  Paul.  God  has  a  perfect  right,  to 
use  his  figure,  to  take  one  lump  of  clay,  and  make  a  vase  to 
hold  flowers  in  the  parlor:  he  has  a  right  to  take  another 
lump,  and  make  a  coarse,  crude  pot  for  use  in  the  kitchen ; 
and  neither  lump  has  a  right  to  say  anything  about  it  one 
way  or  the  other.  He  has  a  right  to  make  one  man  for  one 
use,  and  another  for  another, — to  predestinate  one  to  suc- 
cess and  glory,  to  predestinate  another  to  failure  and  dis- 
aster j  and  these  have  no  right  to  question  either  the  wisdom 
or  justice  of  the  dispensation.  But,  in  justice  to  Paul,  I  wish 
you  to  note  that  the  outcome  of  his  doctrine  is  quite  differ- 
ent from  that  of  Calvin  and  modern  Orthodoxy. 

The  next  great  doctrine  of  Paul  is  his  uncompromising, 
unhesitating  acceptance  of  the  legend  that  teaches  the  fall  of 
man.  Adam,  the  first  man,  stood  as  the  earthly  head  of 
humanity  up  to  his  time.     The  doctrine  of  the  "  federal  head- 


Il8  Beliefs   about  the   Bible. 

ship,"  as  it  has  come  to  be  called  in  theology,  is  undoubtedly 
a  Pauline  doctrine.  Man,  with  Adam  at  the  head  up  to  the 
time  of  the  birth  of  Christ,  had  been  simply  a  disastrous 
failure.  In  Adam,  all  died ;  through  Adam  came  sin  ;  through 
Adam  came  sorrow;  through  Adam  came  all  the  disasters 
that  have  ever  afflicted  poor,  suffering  humanity.  Paul,  of 
course,  had  none  of  the  means  of  knowledge  at  the  disposal 
of  any  intelligent  man  in  the  modern  world.  He  did  not 
know,  therefore,  that  death  had  reigned  not  only  since  Adam 
and  over  all  his  descendants,  but  for  some  thousands  and 
millions  of  years  before  Adam  was  ever  thought  of.  He  did 
not  know  that  suffering  and  pain  had  been  in  existence,  not 
only  among  men,  but  in  the  animal  world  for  millions  of 
years.  If  he  had,  he  would  have  had  no  more  faith  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  fall  than  I  have.  But  Paul  believed  in  the 
federal  headship  of  Adam;  that  he  was  the  representative 
and  leader  of  the  world  up  to  that  time>  and  that,  under  his 
headship,  the  world  had  been  a  failure.  Naturally,  then,  he 
turned  to  some  scheme  of  recovery.  He  desired  to  find 
some  way  in  which  this  long  failure  could  be  turned  into 
success.  He  desired  to  find  some  method,  a  part  of  the 
secret  council  and  fore-knowledge  of  God, —  for  not  only  the 
fall,  but  the  redemption  was  part  of  the  predestination  of 
Paul, —  by  which  a  new  order  of  things  could  be  instituted, 
and  the  world  be  ultimately  crowned  with  success. 

Here,  then,  we  are  led  to  consider  Paul's  view  of  Christ. 
There  is  another  thing  also,  at  the  outset,  to  which  I  wish  to 
call  your  careful  attention ;  for  people  seem  to  read  the  Bible 
in  a  blindfold  and  sleepy  way,  if  they  read  it  at  all, —  never 
thinking  of  comparing  part  with  part,  or  treating  it  as  they 
would  treat  any  other  book,  or  as  they  should,  if  they  wish  to 
learn  anything  from  it.  I  was  taught  in  this  way  myself. 
I  was  taught  to  read  so  many  verses  as  so  much  religious 


The  Epistles.  I19 

duty  accomplished ;  so  many  square  inches  of  Bible,  so  much 
goodness.  Thus,  people  read  the  Bible,  never  using  their 
brains  and  common  sense  about  it. 

We  need  now  to  consider  Paul's  attitude  toward  Christ,— 
toward  Christ,  not  toward  Jesus ;  for  it  is  hardly  too  much 
to  say  that  Paul  made  no  account  of  the  personal  Jesus 
whatever.  I  want  to  make  that  distinction  clear.  Paul  does 
not  have  anything  to  say  about  Jesus.  The  only  time  he 
quotes  his  words  is  when  he  gives  the  story  of  the  Last 
Supper,  and,  in  another  place,  where  he  quotes  a  saying 
from  Jesus  that  does  not  appear  in  the  Gospels.  He  does 
not  anywhere  say  anything  about  what  Jesus  did.  He  has 
not  a  hint  anywhere  of  any  miraculous  conception.  He 
speaks  of  no  miracles  in  the  modern  sense  of  that 
word.  He  only  refers  in  a  general  way  to  signs  and  won- 
ders. But  he  believed  that  "  speaking  with  tongues,"  that 
incoherent  gibberish  and  babbling,  was  a  miracle;  so  you  can 
understand  what  he  meant  when  he  spoke  of  signs  and  won- 
ders. He  says  nothing  about  his  raising  people  from  the  dead 
or  feeding  the  multitude.  Yet  you  must  remember  that  he 
stood  nearest  to  Jesus  of  all  who  wrote  of  him  in  the  New 
Testament.  It  is  strange  that  he  should  not  allude  to  these 
things  in  all  of  his  Epistles.  There  is  not  a  trace  of  his 
having  any  personal  love  for  Jesus,  the  man.  He  says, 
frankly  and  distinctly,  that  he  never  saw  him,  except  in  a 
vision ;  and  he  makes  so  little  account  of  these  things  that, 
when  he  comes  up  to  Jerusalem  and  talks  over  the  condition 
of  the  early  Church  with  the  apostles,  he  says  they  had 
nothing  to  tell  him  that  he  cared  anything  about, —  to  use  his 
own  phrase,  they  "  added  nothing  "  to  him.  He  refers  to  the 
apostles  very  slightingly,  "those  who  seemed  to  be  some- 
what," to  be  pillars.  He  speaks  of  them  with  hardly  dis- 
guised antagonism  and  irony ;  and  he  was  in  antagonism  with 


I20  Beliefs  about   the   Bible. 

them  the  most  of  his  life.  You  see  how  little  account  he 
makes  of  the  historic  Jesus.  What  does  he  make  account 
of?  Of  the  theologic  Christ  as  standing  for  a  part  of  the 
scheme  of  the  divine  economy  in  the  salvation  of  the 
world. 

There  are  three  distinct  stages  of  progress  very  perceptible 
in  Paul's  writings,  as  illustrating  three  stages  of  growth  in 
his  mind  concerning  the  doctrine  of  Christ.  In  the  first 
place,  he  is  converted  to  the  belief  that  Jesus  is  the  Messiah. 
But  he  does  not  stop  there.  We  find  at  the  last  that  he  had 
risen  to  the  belief  that  Jesus  was  a  pre-existent  being ;  that 
he  was  the  Angel-Messiah ;  that  he  was  the  first-borh  of 
every  creature;  that  he  was  the  beginning  of  the  creation  of 
God,  and  only  less  than  God  himself.  But  the  great  thing 
that  he  believed,  whether  he  called  him  Messiah  or  pre- 
existent  angel  or  head  of  the  Church,  was  that  Jesus  was 
the  head  of  a  new  and  renovated  humanity. 

I  have  told  you  what  Paul  believed  about  Adam,  that  he 
was  the  head  of  the  race  that  was  a  failure.  Over  against 
Adam,  the  old  man,  he  sets  Christ,  the  new  man,  revealed 
from  heaven  as  the  new  head  of  the  new  humanity.  This 
is  the  most  significant  thing  in  the  whole  belief  of  Paul,  so 
far  as  his  doctrine  of  Christ  is  concerned.  He  was  the  head 
of  the  new  order  of  humanity.  Those  who  became  engrafted 
into  the  Church,  those  who  became  followers  and  disciples 
of  Christ,  put  off  the  old  idea  of  Adam,  sloughed  off  their 
whole  association  with  the  old  and  false  order  of  humanity, 
and  became  members  of  this  new  race, —  the  redeemed  and 
renovated  Church  of  God.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  Paul 
concerning  Christ. 

I  said,  a  little  while  ago,  that  the  predestination  taught  by 
Paul  had  a  far  different  outcome  for  the  history  of  this  world 
from  that  taught  by  Calvin  and  the  orthodox  churches  of  the 


The  Epistles.  12  r 

day.  He  teaches  that  the  fall  of  man  and  the  redemption 
are  parts  of  the  one  divine  plan  of  him  who,  as  a  sovereign, 
works  his  eternal  will.  But  he  held  so  grand  a  conception 
of  God  that  he  believed  it  is  a  part  of  this  sovereign  will 
that  the  world  ultimately,  this  whole  groaning,  travailing, 
weeping,  and  crying  creation,  shall  be  redeemed.  So  he 
teaches  that  the  Jews  were  rejected  and  outcast  only  as  a 
temporary  thing,  only  as  the  occasion  of  the  bringing  in  of 
the  Gentiles.  He  teaches  that,  when  by  and  by  the  Gentiles 
are  all  brought  in,  then  the  Jews  also  are  to  be  reclaimed ; 
and  then,  under  Christ,  there  is  no  longer  to  be  any  Jew  or 
Greek,  any  civilized  or  barbarian.  They  are  all  to  be  one 
as  parts  of  this  new  humanity.  Christ  is  to  be  the  head  of 
it,  and  all  the  world  is  to  be  brought  into  one  under  his  head- 
ship. Then,  at  the  last,  Christ  is  to  deliver  up  the  kingdom 
to  the  Father,  and  God  is  to  be  all  and  in  all. 

Ultimately,  then,  Paul  was  both  a  Universalist  and  a  Uni- 
tarian ;  for,  although  he  teaches  the  pre-existence  of  this 
Christ,  he  teaches  plainly  his  subordination  to  God,  and,  as 
the  final  outcome  of  everything,  that  he  is  to  give  up  the 
kingdom  to  the  one  God,  and  all  men  are  to  be  part  of  this 
kingdom.  This  is  the  outcome  of  Paul's  doctrine  of  predes- 
tination. 

I  have  left  to  the  last  that  which  is  the  grandest  work  that 
Paul  wrought, —  a  work  as  grand  as  that  which  almost  any 
man  has  ever  wrought  in  the  history  of  humanity. 

I  said  in  the  beginning  that  there  were  two  factions  in 
the  early  churches.  It  was  inevitable  that  there  should  be. 
Here  were  these  Jews  who  had  been  taught  and  trained  for 
ages  into  the  belief  that  the  Mosaic  dispensation  was  not 
only  divine,  but  eternal ;  that,  on  the  basis  of  this,  a  new 
kingdom,  after  the  type  of  the  kingdom  of  David,  was  to  be 
established,  and  the  Jews  were  to  rule  over  the  world  for- 


nT  TTTIC 


122  Beliefs   about    the  Bible, 

ever.  But  here  comes  in  a  new  claimant,  a  new  Messiah,  as 
those  who  accepted  the  Messianic  doctrine  believed.  And 
here  comes  Paul,  organizing  churches  all  over  the  Roman 
Empire,  and  saying  that  this  divine  dispensation  of  Judaism 
is  obsolete  and  outgrown.  It  is  very  natural  that  it  should 
require  some  time  to  accept  so  strange  a  doctrine  as  that. 
James  said,  the  old  first  church  at  Jerusalem  said,  all  the 
apostles  said.  You  must  also  keep  the  law  of  Moses,  or  you 
cannot  be  saved.  They  sent  their  emissaries  after  Paul  all 
over  the  Roman  Empire,  because  they  regarded  him  as  the 
most  dangerous  heretic  of  the  age.  They  felt  that  he  was 
trying  to  do  good,  but  that  he  was  teaching  false  doctrine  in 
sajdng  that  it  was  not  necessary  to  keep  the  law  of  Moses. 
After  a  while,  they  found  that  they  had  to  compromise,  and 
they  said.  You  do  not  have  to  keep  all,  but  there  are  certain 
things  you  must  keep  ;  and,  for  a  long  time,  they  still  clung 
to  the  idea  of  the  shadow  after  they  had  given  up  the  sub- 
stance. It  was  ages  before  they  gave  up  the  notion  that  a 
Jewish  Christian  was  not  better  than  a  Gentile  one.  They 
believed  that  there  was  an  advantage  in  having  been  born  in 
the  Jewish  religion.  This  was  the  origin  of  the  great  divi- 
sion in  the  Church,  with  Peter  at  the  head  on  the  one  hand, 
and  Paul  at  the  head  on  the  other.  For  a  great  many  years, 
this  discussion  rent  the  Church  in  twain  and  almost  threat- 
ened its  existence.  You  find  traces  of  it  throughout  the 
New  Testament,  one  party  hitting  at  the  other,  and  that  in 
turn  striking  back;  Paul  striking  hard  blows  on  one  side, 
and  his  opponents  returning  them  on  the  other. 

The  Acts  of  the  Apostles  is  a  very  late  book.  It  was 
written  after  this  warfare  between  the  two  churches  had 
practically  died  out.  It  was  a  sort  of  compromise,  written 
by  somebody  who  wanted  to  unite  these  two  factions.  You 
will  notice  a  strange  parallelism  between  the  sayings  and 


The  Epistles.  123 

doings  of  Paul  and  Peter  in  this  book.  If,  in  one  chapter, 
Paul  is  represented  as  doing  something  wonderful,  you  will 
find  Peter  doing  as  strange  a  thing  in  the  next.  This  book  is 
evidently  written  for  the  express  purpose  of  healing  over  this 
division  in  the  Church  and  doing  justice  to  both  sides. 

But,  now,  what  is  the  point  of  the  grand  work  that  Paul 
did  ?  If  it  had  not  been  for  Paul,  we  might  not  have  had  an 
historic  Christianity.  We  should  certainly  have  had  a  very 
different  one,  and  not  so  good  a  one  as  that  which  we  have 
had.  It  would  have  been  impossible  for  the  early  apostles 
to  have  forced  upon  the  Roman  Empire  not  only  a  belief  in 
Jesus,  but  also  the  practice  of  all  the  ritual  of  the  Jews. 
If  they  had  attempted  that,  the  whole  effort  would  have 
broken  down,  and  Christianity  would  have  been  merely  a 
new  sect  of  Judaism  confined  to  a  few  followers.  But  Paul, 
with  his  views,  felt  that  the  hour  of  the  Mosaic  ritual  had 
struck.  The  past  had  been  a  failure,  or  at  most  only  a 
type,  a  shadow  leading  on  to  Christ,  the  head  of  the  new 
humanity.  And  so  he  said  :  The  works  of  the  law,  that 
neither  you  nor  your  fathers  could  keep,  are  dead  rubbish, 
to  be  swept  away.  So  he  dispensed  with  sacrifices  and 
the  Jewish  Sabbath,  and  it  may  be  noted  he  did  not  say 
anything  about  any  other.  You  need  not  pay  any  atten- 
tion to  the  laws  of  Moses,  he  said.  They  are  all  gone  by. 
They  are  only  a  shadow  leading  to  Christ;  and,  now  that 
Christ  has  come,  everything  is  summed  up  in  faith  in  him. 
And  so  arose  Paul's  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith.  He 
became  the  liberator  of  the  world,  and  we  are  to  rank  him  as 
hardly  second  among  the  great  men  who  have  snapped  the 
shackles  that  have  bound  the  freedom  of  the  human  race. 
Paul  broke  off  this  enclosing  shell  of  Moses,  and  set  civiliza- 
tion free.  This  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  was  the 
weapon  with  which  he  did  it ;  for  he  said  :  Whether  you  are 


124  Beliefs   about  the    Bible. 

Jew  or  Gentile,  it  does  not  make  any  difference.  Only  appro- 
priate and  incorporate  into  your  own  life  the  life  of  this  new 
Christ.  Do  it  by  faith.  If  you  believe  and  accept,  you  are  a 
part  of  this  new  dispensation  of  God.  And  so  Jew  and 
Gentile,  Egyptian,  Greek,  Roman,  no  matter  who,  any  man 
who  accepted  Christ,  became  a  part  of  this  new  kingdom  of 
heaven  \  and  thus  all  the  petty,  worrying,  wearing,  exacting, 
ritualistic  ceremonies  of  the  Jews  were  abolished  at  one 
stroke.  Paul's  belief  in  salvation  by  faith  was  not  a  mere 
petty  intellectual  assent  to  an  idea.  It  was  with  him  a  be- 
lieving in  something  all  over,  in  such  dead  earnest  that  you 
are  ready  to  give  your  life  for  it ;  just  as  you  business  men 
believe  in  a  thing  so  that  you  are  ready  to  risk  a  fortune  on 
it.  Faith  is  not  merely  saying,  yes,  when  somebody  an- 
nounces a  proposition.  It  is  a  belief  that  drags  a  whole 
train  of  character  and  consequences  after  it.  That  is  Paul's 
belief  in  justification  by  faith. 

How  broad  that  was,  and  what  power  of  freedom  it  had  in 
it,  was  proved  again  in  the  sixteenth  century.  The  Christian 
Church,  under  the  Catholic  power,  had  become  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  a  worse  Judaism,  with  ritual  and  ceremo- 
nial,— everything  except  character,  manliness,  and  force, — 
when  Luther  rose;  and  the  weapon  with  which  he  broke 
the  chains  of  modern  Europe  was  Paul's  old  grand  doctrine. 
I  am  not  sure  that  we  are  done  with  that  weapon  yet.  It 
does  not  belong  by  any  patent  right  to  Orthodoxy.  Paul 
forged  the  weapon.  Paul  tried  its  temper  and  proved  its 
power.  Then,  it  lay  rusting  and  waiting  for  a  thousand 
years,  until  Luther  proved  strong  enough  to  wield  it,  and 
once  more  to  fight  again  the  battle  for  human  freedom. 
And,  though  it  be  put  away  in  its  armory,  it  will  be  called 
for  again  and  again.  For  this  doctrine  means  simply  going 
right  deep  down  to  the  heart  of  humanity,  and  saying  that 


The  Epistles,  125 

what  you  believe  with  your  whole  heart,  and  are  willing  to 
put  your  life  into,  is  that  which  makes  you  what  you  are. 

This,  then,  is  the  service  which  Paul  rendered  to  the  world ; 
and  it  is  hints  of  this  service  which  are  scattered  all  through 
these  Epistles,  and  which  will  make  them  in  all  coming 
time,  whatever  theory  of  the  Bible  may  go  up  or  down,  of 
inestimable  value  to  those  who  care  to  know  the  history  of 
humanity. 


THE  GOSPELS. 


As  WE  open  the  New  Testament,  we  find  the  four  Gospels, 
Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John,  leading  the  list  of  its 
books.  Yet,  as  I  had  occasion  to  tell  you  in  my  sermon  on 
the  Epistles,  if  we  follow,  as  I  have  tried  to  do  in  a  rough 
fashion,  the  chronological  order,  we  shall  place  the  Gospels 
at  the  end  of  the  New  Testament  rather  than  at  the  begin- 
ning. It  was  perfectly  natural  and  indeed  inevitable,  as  I 
have  already  showed  you,  that  the  Gospels  should  have  been 
written  after  the  Epistles  were.  It  could  hardly  have  been 
otherwise  in  the  state  of  Christian  belief  that  existed  then ; 
for  it  was  a  part  of  that  early  belief  taught,  as  they  sup- 
posed, not  only  by  apostle  and  teacher,  but  by  the  Master 
himself,  that  Jesus  was  very  soon  to  return  from  sitting  at 
the  right  hand  of  God  in  the  heavens,  that  he  was  to  raise 
the  dead,  that  there  was  to  be  a  general  judgment  and  a 
miraculous  ushering  in  of  the  world-wide  Messianic  kingdom. 
Of  course,  then,  expecting  him,  perhaps  to-night,  possibly  to- 
morrow, next  week, —  at  the  utmost,  very  soon, —  they  would 
feel  no  necessity  of  writing  down  long  stories  of  his  life  or 
connected  statements  of  what  he  had  said.  It  was  only 
after  they  had  waited  and  were  disappointed ;  after  they  had 
expected,  and  he  had  not  come  ;  after  they  had  begun  to 
look  over  the  promises  of  his  coming,  and  see  if,  in  any  way, 
they  could  explain  the  delay, —  it  was  only  after  all  this  that 
there  arose  on  the  part  of  those  little  scattered   Christian 


The  Gospels,  127 

communities  in  the  Roman  Empire  a  feeling  of  the  necessity 
for  some  connected  and  authoritative  record  of  what  the 
waited-for  Jesus  had  said  and  done.  Then,  of  course,  it  was 
very  natural  that  those  who  had  opportunity  to  know  these 
things  should  write  more  or  less  full  and  connected  accounts 
of  them,  and  that  thus  the  Gospels  should  spring  up. 

These  four  Gospels,  four  little  thin  pamphlets, —  for  they 
could  all  be  comprehended  within  the  limits  of  less  than  a 
hundred  pages, —  are  really  the  most  significant  part  perhaps 
of  all  the  world's  literature.  They  tell,  or  claim  to  tell,  the 
story  of  the  life  of  that  Galilean  peasant  who,  after  spend- 
ing his  youth  in  utter  obscurity,  flashes  into  the  sight 
of  his  countrymen  for  a  year,  or  two,  or  three,  according 
as  we  take  one  account  or  another,  then  disappears  by 
an  ignominious  death,  and,  after  two  or  three  hundred  years, 
is  exalted,  in  the  reverence  of  the  civilized  world,  to  the 
position  of  Almighty  God.  No  rational  man,  then,  can  be 
indifferent  to  the  nature  and  authority  of  these  little  books, 
when  they  tell  us  a  story  which  has  played  a  part  in  the 
history  of  the  civilized  world  so  stupendous,  so  unique,  that 
it  stands  alone,  and  has  no  second. 

What,  then,  is  it  that  we  desire  to  know  concerning  them  > 
We  want  to  know  of  course,  first,  by  what  authority  these 
little  pamphlets  speak.  Are  they  the  word  of  God,  infal- 
libly, eternally  true?  Or  are  they  the  traditions  of  men^ 
stories  naturally  springing  up  and  growing  through  the 
imaginative  and  creative  consciousness  of  the  early  Church  ? 
Who  wrote  them  ?  Did  Matthew  and  Mark  and  Luke  and 
John  write  them,  just  as  we  have  them  to-day  ?  If  they  did, 
who  were  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John,  and  how  much 
are  their  opinions  worth  t 

Whichever  way  we  look  at  these  Gospels,  you  see  we 
come  back  to  the  question  of  the  authority  of  these  books,. 


128  Beliefs   about   the  Bible, 

the  power  by  which  they  speak.  It  is  in  pursuit  of  this  that 
I  ask  you  to  come  with  me  this  morning,  while  I  examine 
this  subject.  I  trust  you  will  appreciate  the  difficulty  and 
magnitude  of  my  task.  It  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than 
to  condense  into  some  comprehensible  shape  whole  libraries, 
and,  if  I  may,  pack  them,  so  that  my  story  shall  have 
some  significance  and  meaning,  within  the  abbreviated  limits 
of  an  hour. 

Let  us  then  start  from  the  stand-point  of  our  modem 
world,  and  go  up  the  ages,  and  see  what  we  can  find  out 
about  these  books. 

The  oldest  manuscript  that  we  have  of  them'  takes  us 
back  only  to  the  fourth  century, —  that  is,  some  three 
hundred  years  after  the  death  of  him  concerning  whom  they 
were  written.  The  first  question  we  naturally  ask  is, 
whether  there  is  reason  to  suppose  that  we  have  these  four 
little  books  in  substantially  the  same  shape  in  which  they 
were  originally  written.  Three  hundred  years  had  passed 
since  the  death  of  him  of  whom  they  are  a  biography ;  and 
we  do  not  know  just  when  they  came  into  the  precise  shape 
in  which  they  are  to-day.  The  names  now  attached  to 
them  we  do  not  find  until  nearly  the  last  quarter  of  the 
second  century, —  that  is,  perhaps  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  although  the  earliest  forms 
of  the  Gospels  may  have  existed  long  before  that. 

The  first  question,  then,  as  I  have  said,  is  whether  we 
have  an  accurate  transcript  of  these  four  little  books  in 
substantially  the  same  shape  in  which  they  were  when  they 
first  took  form.  We  are  obliged  to  answer  this  question  in 
the  negative;  for  the  different  manuscripts  of  the  Gospels 
which  are  in  existence  give  us  some  hundreds,  if  not 
thousands,  of  various  renderings.  There  are  differences  in 
words  or  in  phrases,  a  difference  of  half  a  sentence,  some- 


The  Gospels.  129 

times  differences  of  whole  paragraphs,  or  sometimes  half  a 
chapter,  or  even  more  than  that.  Then,  we  know  that  there 
were  changes  through  the  carelessness  of  transcribers. 
There  were  changes  from  dogmatic  reasons,  in  order  that 
the  person  copying  or  using  them  might  make  them  teach 
what  they  held  to  be  true.  In  this  way,  changes  of  greater 
or  less  magnitude  were  made.  Sometimes,  they  were  the 
result  of  intentional  fraud.  Let  me  give  you  the  authority 
of  Origen,  one  of  the  most  famous  and  learned  of  all  the 
church  Fathers.  It  was  some  time  after  the  New  Testament 
books  were  written  before  they  took  on  the  character  of 
sacred  writings,  when  a  man  would  not  have  been  regarded 
as  sacrilegious  for  taking  from  or  adding  to  them.  They 
were  considered  as  the  work  of  ordinary  men,  and  not  too 
sacred  to  be  touched  or  changed  as  yet.  But,  whatever  may 
have  been  thought  of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  in 
the  early  Church,  the  entire  Church  at  the  time  professed  to 
regard  with  almost  superstitious  sacredness  the  books  of 
the  Old  Testament.  That  was  the  Scripture  before  the  New 
Testament  became  Scripture.  Yet  we  have  the  authority  of 
Origen,  writing  in  the  fourth  century,  for  the  statement  that, 
in  the  heated  and  angry  controversies  of  that  period,  people 
did  not  scruple  to  change  even  the  text  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment for  their  awn  purposes.  Concerning  the  Septuagint, 
he  says :  "  There  are  evidently  great  discrepancies  in  the 
copies  of  the  Septuagint,  whether  attributable  to  the  careless- 
ness of  scribes,  or  to  the  rash  and  pernicious  alteration 
of  the  text  by  some,  and  the  unauthorized  interpolations 
and  omissions  of  others."  Origen  writes  in  that  way  about 
the  manner  in  which  the  early  Church  dared  to  treat  even 
the  Old  Testament  Scriptures;  so  you  can  imagine  with 
what  freedom  they  would  handle  the  less  sacred  and  newer 
books  that  afterwards  came  to  be  the  New  Testament. 


130  Beliefs   about   the  Bible. 

We  know,  then,  that  there  were  great  changes  made. 
These  books  floated  around  in  the  churches,  and  passed 
through  some  of  the  most  biting,  bitter,  and  burning  con- 
troversies that  the  religious  world  has  ever  seen.  They 
hurled  texts  on  both  sides  with  as  much  vigor  as  has  been 
done  in  the  modern  world.  When  you  remember  that  there 
were  only  manuscripts,  that  there  were  no  printed  books,  no 
standards  of  authority  or  appeal,  you  can  see  how  easy  it 
might  be  for  a  man  to  make  a  change  in  his  own  copy,  and 
then  claim  that  that  was  the  original.  Another  man  having 
a  copy  that  did  not  agree  with  it  would  claim  that  his  was 
the  original,  and  the  one  who  claimed  the  loudest' would  be 
likely  to  carry  the  day. 

Another  point.  Were  there  more  than  four  Gospels,  and, 
if  so,  how  does  it  happen  that  we  have  only  four  to-day  ? 

There  were  a  great  many  Gospels  written  in  the  early 
Church.  I  have  here  in  my  hand,  for  example,  a  copy  of 
the  apocryphal  New  Testament.  It  is  almost  as  large  as 
the  genuine  one.  This  book  is  made  up  of  Gospels,  visions, 
and  allegories,  which  were  rejected  by  the  orthodox  of  the 
Church  as  time  went  on.  It  contains  at  the  beginning  four 
Gospels,  the  Gospel  of  Mary,  the  Protevangelion,  the  Gospel 
of  the  Infancy,  the  Gospel  of  Nicodemus.  I  also  hold  in 
my  hand  the  book  of  an  eminent  High  Churchman  of 
England,  entitled  Lost  and  Hostile  Gospels^  which  gives  an 
account  of  ten  which  were  known  to  the  early  Church,  a 
part  on  one  side  of  the  great  controversy,  and  a  part  on 
the  other.  I  had  occasion,  in  a  previous  sermon,  as  you 
will  remember,  to  refer  to  the  great  controversy  in  the 
early  Church  between  Paul,  who  was  in  favor  of  admitting 
the  Gentiles,  and  the  other  section,  headed  by  Peter  and 
James,  who  believed  that  no  Gentiles  should  come  in,  or 
only  by  practically  becoming  Jews.     This  controversy  raged 


The  Gospels.  131 

for  a  long  period  of  years ;  and  we  find,  as  a  record  of  it, 
certain  Gospels  called  the  Petrine  Gospels,  representing  the 
Hebraic  side,  and  another  set  called  the  Pauline  Gospels, 
which  take  Paul's  side  of  the  controversy.  They  went  to 
the  extent  of  changing  the  records  of  the  Gospels  them- 
selves, coloring  them  to  suit  one  faction  or  another  of  this 
great  party  controversy.  These  Gospels,  many  of  them, 
were  written  or  changed,  as  it  was  supposed,  in  the  interest 
of  heretical  sects,  though  it  is  quite  a  question  whether  those 
that  came  to  be  called  heretical  were  not  originally  the 
orthodox  ones  who  changed  to  heretics  by  being  left  be- 
hind; for  Orthodoxy  changed,  as  it  has  been  changing 
ever  since,  and  that  which  represented  the  older  ideas 
became  the  heresies  left  behind. 

Along  toward  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century,  we  find 
that  the  sifting  process  has  gone  on,  and  the  Church  has  come 
to  a  general  consensus  of  opinion  as  to  which  Gospels  should 
be  accepted  as  genuine  ;  and  those  were  the  four  that  we  have 
ih  our  hands  to-day. 

We  can  reconstruct  some  of  those  lost  and  hostile  Gospels ; 
that  is,  we  can  tell  almost  the  whole  story  of  the  life  of 
Jesus  as  told  there,  through  picking  up  the  quotations  made 
here  and  there  in  the  controversial  writings  of  the  day. 
Take,  for  example,  the  Gospel  of  Marcion,  one  of  the  leading 
heretics  of  the  time.  He  had  a  Gospel  which  he  claimed  to 
be  older  than  any  we  possess,  and  which  I  am  inclined  to 
think  was  so.  This  represented  Jesus  as  human,  and  took 
the  Hebraic  side  of  the  controversy.  Marcion,  being  one 
of  the  great  leaders  of  heresy,  was  quoted  by  all  the  princi- 
pal writers  of  the  time.  They  quoted  his  Gospel  here  and 
there  and  everywhere  to  such  an  extent  that  we  can,  in  the 
literature  of  the  early  Church,  pick  out  nearly  the  whole  of 
it,  and  put   it  together  like  a  piece   of  mosaic  work.     As 


'132  Beliefs   about    the  Bible. 

letting  you  into  the  secret  of  the  state  of  mind  of  one  of 
those  early  Fathers  that  we  are  accustomed  to  look  upon 
with  such  exaggerated  reverence,  let  me  give  a  specimen  of 
his  opinions.  After  the  Gospel  of  John  had  been  written 
and  become  popular,  and  the  four  Gospels  had  been  decided 
on,  Irenaeus,  writing  about  185  A.D.,  gives  his  reason  why,  in 
his  opinion,  there  are  these  four  Gospels  and  no  more ;  and 
it  is  a  most  astonishing  reason.  He  does  not  say  there  are 
four  Gospels  because  there  were  only  four  writers  who  told 
the  truth,  because  there  were  only  four  who  wrote  with  au- 
thority, that  there  were  only  four  who  were  inspired  to  do 
this  kind  of  work.  He  does  not  say  anything  about  that. 
What  does  he  say  ?  "  It  is  impossible  that  the  Gospels  can  be 
more  or  less  than  they  are.  For,  as  there  are  four  zones  in 
the  world  which  we  inhabit,  and  four  principal  winds,  while 
the  Church  is  spread  abroad  throughout  the  earth,  and  the 
pillar  and  basis  of  the  Church  is  the  gospel  and  the  spirit 
of  life,  it  is  right  that  she  should  have  four  pillars,  exhaling 
immortality  on  every  side,  and  bestowing  renewed  vitality 
on  men.  From  which  fact,  it  follows  that  the  Word  has 
given  us  four  versions  of  the  gospel  united  by  one  spirit." 

I  want  you  now  to  consider  with  me  a  little  the  traces  of 
growth  which  have  taken  place  in  these  four  Gospels.  If 
you  look  at  them  carefully,  you  will  have  to  divide  them  into 
two  parts ;  the  first  part  containing  the  first  three  Gospels, 
Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke,  the  second  part  John,  by  itself. 
The  first  three  have  been  called  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  from 
two  Greek  words  meaning  taking  a  common  view,  or  seeing 
together.  They  give  in  general  the  same  view  of  Jesus,  dif- 
ferent from  that  of  John. 

Look  at  the  first  three,  and  you  will  see  some  of  the  evi- 
dences lying  on  the  surface  which  prove  to  us  that  we  do  not 
have  the  record  as  it  could  have  been  written  in  the  time  or 


The  Gospels,  133 

near  the  time  of  Jesus.  Of  course,  I  shall  not  be  able  to  go 
into  very  minute  points  of  criticism.  I  shall  only  give  you 
specimens  of  what  might  be  multiplied  indefinitely. 

Take  the  genealogies  first.  Matthew  has  a  genealogy,  and 
Luke  has  one  ;  yet  they  both  tell  the  story  of  the  miraculous 
conception.  They  both  tell  us  that  Jesus  was  the  son  of 
Mary  without  any  human  father.  Yet  they  take  the  pains  to 
give  us  at  length  the  genealogy  of  Joseph,  as  though  that  had 
anything  to  do  with  it.  Unless  Jesus  was  the  son  of  Joseph, 
giving  his  genealogy  does  not  prove  that  he  was  the  son  of 
David  or  of  Abraham,  any  more  than  it  proves  that  I  am.  Of 
course,  it  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  it.  Take  one  or  two 
other  little  hints  akin  to  this.  Jesus  is  represented  when  a 
mere  boy  as  betraying  remarkable  precocity  in  the  journey 
made  to  Jerusalem.  Yet  we  find  his  mother,  who  ought  to 
have  known  whether  he  was  the  son  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
utterly  astonished  at  this  evidence  of  precocity.  We  find  his 
brothers  charging  him  with  being  possessed  with  the  devil,  and 
having  no  sort  of  faith  in  him.  We  find  his  townsmen  laugh- 
ing at  him,  ridiculing  his  pretensions.  Could  it  be  possible 
that  they  had  had  the  slightest  hint  that  this  was  the  son  of 
the  Most  High  God, —  not  only  that,  but  very  God  himself  ? 
If  so,  ought  they  to  have  been  very  much  astonished  at  any 
proof  of  wisdom  he  might  display  in  his  early  childhood  or 
in  any  part  of  his  career  ?  Ought  his  mother  to  have  been 
astonished  that  he  should  feel  that  he  had  a  career  before 
him,  and  that  he  did  not  ask  parental  guidance  or  permis- 
sion concerning  it  ? 

Another  point.  We  find  in  the  Gospels  as  we  have  them 
now  a  phrase  in  which  Jesus  is  represented  as  giving  his 
disciples  the  following  command :  "  Go  ye  therefore  and 
teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father 
and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost."     Turn  to  Paul's 


134  Beliefs   about  the   Bible. 

Epistles.  We  find  him  talked  about,  charged  with  baptizing 
disciples  into  his  own  name.  Would  it  have  been  possible 
for  him  or  for  any  of  the  disciples  to  have  baptized  in  the 
name  of  Paul,  when  they  had  been  commanded  to  baptize  in 
the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  ?  We 
know  perfectly  well  from  the  development  of  doctrine  that, 
until  the  second  or  third  centuries,  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
was  not  held  at  all.  So  that  the  fact  that  this  phrase  is  lying 
there  on  the  surface  of  the  gospel  proves  beyond  question 
that  it  belongs  to  a  later  age,  and  must  have  been  placed 
there  after  the  doctrine  that  it  represents  had  grown  into 
the  consciousness  and  belief  of  the  early  Church. 

Take  another  point.  Jesus  is  represented,  the  very  last 
thing  before  he  left  the  earth,  as  commanding  his  disciples 
to  "go  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gospel  to  every 
creature  " ;  yet  he  has  not  been  dead  ten  years  before  the 
Church  is  rent  into  factions  wrangling  over  the  question 
whether  they  shall  allow  any  Gentile  to  hear  preaching  or 
not,  whether  they  shall  admit  a  Gentile,  even  if  he  wants 
to  come.  Is  it  possible  that  Jesus  could  have  uttered  those 
words,  and  all  the  apostles  have  forgotten  them  so  quickly  ? 
Think  what  a  weapon  they  would  have  been  to  Paul !  What 
if  he  could  have  said  to  Peter  and  James,  Do  you  not 
remember  that  the  very  last  thing  the  Master  said  before 
leaving  the  earth  was  that  we  were  to  preach  the  gospel  to 
every  creature !  But  neither  Paul  refers  to  it  in  controversy, 
nor  does  James  or  Peter.  The  inference  is  irresistible 
that  the  words  were  placed  there  in  a  later  age,  after  the 
Pauline  faction  had  won  the  day;  and,  then,  Jesus  is 
represented  as  indorsing  that  which  was  an  accomplished 
fact. 

In  the  eighteenth  chapter  of  Matthew,  Jesus  is  represented 
as  telling  how  to  deal  with  those  who  should  become  hereti- 


The  Gospels.  135 

cal  or  offenders  in  the  Church.  There  was  not  any  church 
in  existence  until  long  after  he  died.  It  was  absurd  to 
suppose  he  was  talking  about  church  regulations  before  the 
Church  existed.  Then,  the  spirit  of  the  directions  is  utterly 
foreign  to  the  Master.  He  was  always  exceedingly  tender 
to  publicans  and  sinners  and  outcasts.  But,  here,  Jesus  is 
made  to  say  of  such  an  offending  disciple :  "  If  he  neglect 
to  hear  the  Church,  let  him  be  unto  thee  as  an  heathen  man 
and  a  publican."  Can  you  conceive  those  words  in  the 
mouth  of  the  tender,  forgiving,  human  Son  of  Man  ? 

Take  one  more  point.  In  the  twenty-fifth  chapter  of 
Matthew,  Jesus  is  represented  as  sitting  on  the  throne 
of  judgment,  and  before  him  are  gathered  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth ;  and  he  is  giving,  as  Almighty  God,  the  con- 
ditions of  eternal  salvation.  What  are  they?  Simply, 
moral  goodness, —  healing  the  sick,  visiting  those  in  prison, 
feeding  the  hungry,  clothing  the  naked,  looking  after 
the  lowest  outcast.  These  are  the  conditions.  If  there 
were  any  other  conditions,  can  you  conceive  him  who 
had  come  on  purpose  to  save  men  as  forgetting  all 
about  them  ?  What  is  to  become  then  of  all  that  shall  die 
between  the  time  he  utters  those  words  and  the  time  that 
Almighty  God  shall  correct  his  statement,  and  give  a  true 
version  of  the  conditions  of  eternal  life?  Yet,  in  the  last 
chapter  of  the  Gospel  of  Mark,  we  find  the  same  Jesus 
represented  as  sending  his  disciples  into  all  the  world  to 
preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature.  And  what  are  the 
conditions  of  salvation  that  are  here  given?  "He  that 
believeth  and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved;  but  he  that 
believeth  not  shall  be  damned."  Not  a  word  about  good- 
ness or  morality.  Instead  of  its  being  the  Son  of  Man 
who  utters  these  last  words,  I  am  compelled  to  imagine  in 
his  place  a  robed  and  self-sufficient  bishop  of  the  Church, 


136  Beliefs  about    the   Bible, 

domineering  and  dictatorial  toward  those  who  dared  to 
question  his  words. 

These  three  Gospels  represent  three  traditions  in  part; 
and,  in  part,  they  represent  one  common  tradition  concern- 
ing the  life  and  teaching  of  Jesus.  I  want  to  hint  a  word 
about  that  which  would  take  me  a  long  time  to  develop  with 
fulness  and  clearness,  so  that  you  may  see  by  what  process 
we  get  back  through  the  maze  of  the  improbable  and  the 
miraculous,  until  we  find  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  the 
simple  Son  of  Man. 

Each  writer  gives  the  story  of  his  life.  You  will  find  it 
not  only  a  common  story,  but  the  same  words,  fhe  same 
phrases  are  perpetually  recurring  in  each  of  these  three 
different  Gospels.  It  is  settled  beyond  question,  I  think,  as 
a  principle  of  criticism  that  these  three  writers  used  some 
common  materials;  that  is,  Mark  did  not  borrow  from 
Matthew,  nor  Luke  from  either,  but  all  three  used  a  common 
fund  of  tradition.  We  find  traces  in  the  traditions  of  the 
times  of  logia,  little  fragmentary  writings.  Some  one  had 
gathered  the  sayings  of  Jesus,  another  had  written  a  partial 
account  of  what  he  did,  and  so  there  grew  up  this  common 
fund  of  tradition  concerning  him.  And,  when  these  Gospels 
were  written,  they  used  this  common  story,  making  such 
additions  as  they  thought  best.  If  we  take  out  that  which 
is  common  to  them  all,  if  we  take  out  the  story  in  which 
they  all  agree,  and  leave  out  that  which  is  added,  we  come 
to  that  to  which  scholars  have  given  the  name  of  the  triple 
tradition.  Suppose  we  take  three  Lives  of  Lincoln  or 
Washington,  distinct  in  many  points,  and  yet  agreeing  in 
many,  we  should  feel  more  certain  of  those  things  which 
were  told  by  all  three  than  of  what  was  told  by  any  one 
alone.  Precisely  the  same  is  true  here.  If  we  extract  the 
story  from  these  three  Gospels,  we  can  make  out  a  complete 


The  Gospels,  137 

history  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  use  only  the  very  words 
which  are  common  to  all  three  of  these  different  writers. 

If  we  make  such  a  story  as  that,  what  kind  of  a  man  do 
we  find  ?  The  supernatural  birth  is  lost  at  once,  so  also  the 
story  of  the  supernatural  resurrection  and  ascension  into 
heaven.  Nearly  all  the  more  stupendous  and  incredible 
miracles  are  gone ;  and  we  stand  in  the  presence  of  a  simple, 
loving,  tender,  heroic,  devoted  man, —  a  man  about  whom 
wonder  stories  are  beginning  to  gather,  and  they  seem  so 
simple  and  so  natural  that  we  can  almost  see  the  materials 
out  of  which  they  have  sprung.  This  is  the  process  that 
criticism  is  going  through  with  to-day,  just  as  it  seeks  to  find 
the  origin  of  any  wonderful  story  that  it  believes  to  have 
had  an  historic  basis. 

I  have  said  John  stands  apart.  The  other  three  Gospels 
were  growths.  Neither  Matthew  nor  Mark  nor  Luke  wrote 
them.  Those  names  as  attached  to  them  were  purely  tradi- 
tional, but  without  one  particle  of  authority.  We  do  not  find 
those  names  until  nearly  two  hundred  years  have  gone  by. 

It  is  a  fact  recognized  by  all  the  best  orthodox  criticism 
of  to-day,  as  represented  by  Prof.  Robertson  Smith  in  the 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  and  by  Dr.  Abbott  of  the  English 
Church  in  the  same,  that  these  Gospels  are  unapostolic  digests 
of  early  traditions.  That  is,  some  one  has  edited  and  gath- 
ered into  the  shape  in  which  we  have  them  materials  a  good 
deal  older  than  they.  The  Gospel  of  John,  however,  stands 
alone.  Here,  Jesus  is  not  a  simple  man.  It  is  announced 
in  the  very  outset  that  it  is  not  a  simple  man  of  whom  he 
writes.  John's  Gospel  is  a  theological  treatise.  He  starts 
out  with  a  thesis  which  he  is  going  to  prove,  and  he  selects 
from  the  materials  here  and  there  that  which  shall  serve  his 
purpose ;  and,  when  he  is  done,  we  recognize  hardly  a  single 
lineament  of  the  simple  son  of  Joseph  and  Mary  of  the  first 


138  Beliefs  about  the   Bible. 

three  Gospels,  and  we  find  in  his  place  a  grand,  pre-existent, 
spiritual,  metaphysical  abstraction  ;  for  the  Jesus  of  John  is 
not  a  man.  He  could  by  no  possibility  have  been  the  same 
person  about  whom  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke  are  writing. 
By  the  time  John  wrote,  the  doctrine  had  developed  of  his 
being  the  pre-existent  Christ,  partaking  of  the  nature  of  God. 
He  says  nothing  about  any  human  origin  or  birth,  but  begins 
with  him  in  the  heavens,  before  he  descends  to  earth.  Then, 
after  a  brief  phenomenal  appearance  here,  he  disappears 
into  the  clouds  again. 

Let  us  note  two  or  three  points  of  difference  between  this 
conception  and  the  others.  According  to  the  first  three 
Gospels,  the  public  life  of  Jesus  is  given  as  about  a  year  and 
a  half ;  and  he  makes  one  journey  to  Jerusalem,  spending 
most  of  his  life  in  Galilee. 

John,  on  the  other  hand,  appears  to  give  his  public  life  as 
continuing  three  years.  He  makes  three  journeys  to  Jerusa- 
lem, and  spends  the  greater  part  of  his  life  in  Judea.  Both 
cannot  be  true.  See  how  different  are  the  whole  circum- 
stances, the  whole  atmosphere,  and  the  kind  of  man.  The 
writer  of  John  evidently  lived  out  of  Judea.  He  lived  after 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem.  He  makes  all  kinds  of  mis- 
takes in  geography.  He  does  not  locate  the  towns  correctly, 
nor  under  the  right  names.  John  was  intensely  Jewish  in 
belief  and  sympathy,  and  yet  the  writer  of  this  Gospel  speaks 
of  the  Jews  as  though  they  were  a  foreign  people.  He  even 
speaks  to  the  Jews  of  things  in  their  law  as  what  is  written 
"  in  your  law."  Suppose  I,  a  citizen  of  Massachusetts,  should 
stand  here  and  talk  about  one  of  the  common  statutes  under 
which  we  all  live  as  of  "your  law."  If  I  came  from  Ohio,  it 
would  be  appropriate  enough ;  but,  if  I  lived  in  Massachu- 
setts, it  would  be  absurd.  Or,  as  if  I  were  writing  a  book, 
and  should  speak  about  Americans  as  though  I  were  an  Eng- 


The  Gospels.  139 

lishman  or  a  Frenchman.  John  is  speaking  all  the  time  of 
what  the  Jews  did  and  said,  reflecting  the  time  when  the 
Christians  began  to  look  on  the  Jews  as  natural  enemies^ 
and  the  persons  who  had  crucified  their  Lord.  Let  me  read 
a  sentence  here  from  Dr.  Martineau,  one  of  the  leading 
Unitarians  of  the  world  :  — 

That  a  constant  companion  of  the  ministry  of  Jesus  should  shift  it 
almost  wholly  to  a  new  theatre,  should  never  come  across  a  demo- 
niac, and  never  tell  a  parable;  should  remember  nothing  about  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  and  the  Coming  of  the  Son  of  Man ;  should  have 
forgotten  the  last  Passover  of  the  little  flock,  with  its  institution  of  the 
Communion,  and  have  occupied  those  festival  hours  with  the  Crucifixion 
instead ;  should  have  lost  the  Master's  terse  maxims  and  sweet  images  of 
life,  thrown  out  in  homely  dialogue,  and  have  fancied  in  their  place 
elaborate  monologues,  darkened  with  harsh  and  mystic  paradox, —  is  so 
utterly  against  nature  as  to  forfeit  the  rank  of  an  admissible  hypothesis. 

That  is,  Dr.  Martineau  thinks  it  absurd  that  John  could 
have  been  the  author  of  this  Gospel.  Jesus  does  not  utter 
any  parables  in  this  Gospel.  He  tells  them  not  to  make  long 
prayers,  and  yet  he  prays  through  a  whole  chapter.  He  who 
was  tender  and  loving  toward  the  past,  and  who  counted 
himself  as  a  prophet  like  those  of  old,  and  who  accepted  his 
mission  as  prophesied  and  foretold,  is  made  to  say  that  all 
who  came  before  him  were  thieves  and  robbers.  The  Jesus 
of  John's  Gospel  is  metaphysical,  unlovable,  hardly  human, 
utterly  unlike  the  simple  man  of  Nazareth  of  the  first  three. 

Now,  I  must  tell  you  how  it  came  that  such  a  Gospel  as 
this  should  have  been  written,  and  under  what  bias  it  was 
composed. 

I  have  referred  before  to  the  philosophy  and  the  sect  of. 
the  Gnostics.    They  grew  up  in  this  way.    When  the  Septua- 
gint  translation  of  the  Bible  was  made,  there  started  up  in 
Alexandria  a  great  school  of  philosophy,  the  avowed  pur- 
pose of  which,  in  part,  was  to  reconcile  the  religion  of  the 


140  Beliefs  about    tJie  Bible. 

Jews  and  the  philosophy  of  Greece ;  and,  from  that  day  on, 
this  mixture  of  Old  Testament  religion  and  Grecian  philoso- 
phy went  on,  fermenting  and  changing  according  to  the 
popular  taste  and  speculations  of  the  time,  until,  along  in  the 
second  and  third  centuries,  we  find  ourselves  face  to  face 
with  this  great  system  of  Gnosticism.  What  was  the  cen- 
tral point  of  their  belief?  They  believed  that  matter  was 
essentially  evil  and  the  source  of  evil;  that  God  was  the 
ineffable,  the  infinite,  the  unseen,  who  dwelt  remote  from  all 
possible  contact  with  the  visible  world.  Yet,  in  some  way,  he 
was  the  source  of  all  life  and  all  things.  They  had,  there- 
fore, to  bridge  over  this  almost  infinite  gulf  betwe'en  God 
and  the  world  by  conceiving  or  speculating  on  what  they 
called  (Bons^  or  emanations. 

That  is,  in  some  inexplicable,  mysterious  way,  a  god  a  little 
lower  than  the  Infinite  One  emanates  from  him,  constituting 
a  god  of  the  second  class,  and  then  from  this  god  of  the 
second  class  emanates  a  third,  and  so  on  till,  to  make  up 
the  complete  chain,  there  are  about  thirty  different  osons  or 
emanations.  The  last  and  lowest  of  the  whole  range  was  the 
one  who  created  the  world.  They  identified  him  with  the 
Jehovah  of  the  Old  Testament.  When  they  began  to  specu- 
late about  the  nature  of  Jesus,  they  conceived  that,  in  some 
marvellous,  mysterious  way,  he  summed  up  all  this  chain  of 
oeons^  or  emanations,  so  that  it  is  said  that  in  him  dwelt 
all  the  fulness  of  the  godhead  bodily.  You  find  in  him  the 
whole  pleroma^  the  technical  term  by  which  they  designated 
this  whole  range  of  csons  that  linked  the  Infinite  God  to  the 
world.  It  was  a  wild  region  of  speculation.  They  did  not 
have  one  single  fact  to  go  on,  and  it  did  not  seem  to  occur 
to  any  one  of  them  that  they  needed  a  fact.  It  was  one  wild 
chaos  of  speculation,  in  which  the  simplest  and  mildest 
virtues  became  endowed  with  personality. 


The  Gospels.  141 

The  opening  of  John's  Gospel  seems  very  simple  in  Eng- 
lish,—  all  this  about  life  and  light  and  truth.  But,  when  we 
look  at  it  carefully,  we  find  that  these  were  sub-gods,  deities, 
spelled  with  a  capital  letter,  personified  ;  and  Jesus  sums  them 
all  up  in  himself,  and  becomes  the  link  to  bind  God  and  the 
world  together.  Under  the  influences  of  this  philosophy, 
John's  Gospel  was  written.  It  was  a  reconciling  book  be- 
tween the  divisions  in  the  Church,  between  the  Gnostics 
and  the  other  believers.  When  one  who  understands  Gnosti- 
cism looks  at  it,  he  sees  it  all  covered  with  the  finger-marks 
of  that  system,  as  modern  literature  is  covered  over  with  the 
finger-marks  of  evolution  or  Darwinism.  It  could  not  have 
been  written  till  Gnosticism  was  in  the  air,  any  more  than 
Darwinism  could  exist  till  Darwin  had  lived. 

In  what  position  do  we  stand  concerning  the  life  and 
words  of  Jesus  ?  Have  we  a  record  of  them  that  is  perfect, 
complete,  authoritative  ? 

No,  we  must  confess  that  we  have  not,  so  far,  as  we  can 
be  certain,  the  testimony  of  a  single  eye-witness  of  anything 
he  ever  did.  Paul  is  our  oldest  witness,  and  he  never  saw 
Jesus.  We  have  not  the  authoritative  record  of  a  word  he 
ever  uttered.  Yet  do  not  misunderstand  me,  or  think  I  go  too 
far.  I  do  not  doubt  in  the  least  that  we  have  substantially  a 
true  account  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus.  There  are  a  good  many 
things  recorded  that  I  believe  he  did  not  say,  and  of  course 
he  said  a  thousand  things  which  are  not  there.  But  the 
words  of  Jesus  were  of  such  a  nature  that  they  were  not 
easily  to  be  forgotten.  We  may  safely  trust  them  to  tradition, 
and  expect  them  to  be  reported  with  a  great  deal  of  ac- 
curacy ;  and  we  may  believe  that  we  have  them  substantially 
as  he  uttered  them. 

As  we  slough  off  the  accretions  and  later  growths  of 
miracle  and  marvel,  what  kind  of  a  man  do  we  see  Jesus 


142  Beliefs   about  the   Bible. 

must  have  been?  Simply,  a  tender,  gentle,  true,  God-con- 
scious man,  sympathetic  toward  all  men,  a  hero,  a  martyr, 
a  man  who  shared  the  doubts  and  errors  of  his  age, — which 
is  only  saying  that  he  was  human, —  and  yet  rising  above  it 
like  the  Andes  above  a  plain.  He  was  grand  in  his  heroism, 
simple  and  true  when  standing  for  his  convictions  in  the 
face  of  the  Roman  governor  and  the  howling  mob ;  thought- 
ful and  tender  to  the  last,  yet  going  unflinchingly  to  feel  the 
nails  driven  through  the  quivering  flesh  that  fastened  him  to 
the  cross;  a  man,  combining  manhood's  strongest  strength 
and  womanhood's  tenderest  grace;  a  man  to  be  loved,  to 
be  honored,  to  be  everything  except  worshipped.  A  man 
whose  name  we  may  be  proud  to  wear,  if  we  do  not  change 
it  until  it  has  a  meaning  that  he  would  not  have  recognized. 
When  we  come  to  speak  of  the  miracles,  there  is  no  intel- 
ligent jury  in  Boston  could  ever  be  induced  to  commit  a  man 
to  prison  for  thirty  days  for  the  crime  of  larceny,  unless  they 
had  stronger  evidence  for  it  than  we  have  of  any  New  Tes- 
tament miracle.  We  have  stronger  evidence  for  miracles 
performed  in  the  time  of  Saint  Augustine,  in  the  time  of 
Thomas  k  Becket,  for  those  in  Lourdes  last  year,  than  we 
have  of  the  New  Testament  miracles.  Yet  we  let  them 
pass  by  us  as  the  idle  winds  which  we  make  no  account 
of.  Shall  we  then  believe  these  because  they  are  old,  be- 
cause they  are  anonymous,  because  we  cannot  put  the  wit- 
nesses on  the  stand  and  cross-question  them,  because  we  do 
not  know  who  they  were  or  when  or  where  they  lived.  But, 
even  if  we  had  proof  of  such  things,  what  then  ?  It  seems 
strange  to  me  that  people  should  make  so  much  of  the  ques- 
tion whether  John  wrote  the  Gospel  bearing  his  name  or  not. 
If  he  did,  it  is  purely  a  literary  question.  If  I  knew  that 
John,  who  leaned  on  the  bosom  of  Jesus,  wrote  the  Gospel, 
and  therein  declared  that  he  was  a  supernatural  being,  why 


The  Gospels.  145 

should  I  believe  it  ?  Suppose  that  Mr.  Herndon,  after  an 
intimate  association  of  years  with  Lincoln,  should  tell  me 
that  it  was  his  private  conviction  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
a  supernatural  being :  should  I  believe  it  ?  It  would  be  only 
his  opinion,  and  we  must  have  something  more  than  a  simple 
opinion  of  any  man  before  we  can  accept  the  stupendous 
statement  that  three  in  heaven  are  different  from  three  on 
earth,  and  that  a  fallible,  weak,  suffering,  dying  man  is  at 
the  same  moment  the  eternal  and  infinite  God  of  all  the 
worlds. 

But,  after  these  are  all  gone  by,  we  have  in  this  New 
Testament  the  record  of  a  life  whose  influences  cannot  die, — 
one  which,  so  far  as  it  has  had  opportunity  to  make  its  own 
simple  way  and  tell  its  own  simple  stor}%  has  been  largely 
sweetening,  brightening,  helpful,  uplifting, —  and  divine. 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  BIBLE. 


It  is  generally  assumed  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  "  The 
Religion  of  the  Bible."  And,  further,  it  is  also  generally 
assumed  that  this  religion  is  one,  simple,  and  easily  discov- 
ered. Men  speak  of  "the  Word,"  as  though  indeed  the 
Bible  were  only  one  word,  and  had  but  one  utterance.  One 
man  says,  "  I  am  a  Bible  Christian,"  as  though  that  were  a 
perfectly  definite  thing  that  any  one  could  easily  deduce  from 
a  plain  reading  of  the  book.  "  The  Bible  is  the  religion  of 
Protestants,"  said  Chillingworth,  thinking  that  thus  he  was 
plainly  setting  forth  the  grounds  of  the  Reformation  as 
against  the  pretensions  of  Rome.  "  Go  and  read  your  Bible 
prayerfully,  and  you  will  find  it  a  sure  and  safe  guide," — so 
from  our  childhood  have  we  heard  our  ministers  telling  us. 

All  this  takes  for  granted  that  the  Bible  contains  and 
clearly  sets  forth  some  one,  definite  system  of  religious 
truth,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  systems.  But  what  are 
the  facts,  as  practically  set  forth  in  the  real  condition  of  the 
"  Christian  "  world  ?  The  Romanist  prayerfully  reads  his 
Bible,  and  he  finds  in  it  the  primacy  of  Peter,  the  supremacy 
of  the  Church,  and  the  direction  to  "do  penance  "  for  the 
forgiveness  of  sins.  The  Protestant  prayerfully  reads  it, 
and  he  discovers  that  Rome  is  the  "mystic  Babylon,"  the 
"  mother  of  harlots,"  the  "  abomination  of  desolation."  The 
Churchman  reads  it  prayerfully,  and  he  sees  priestly  suprem- 
acy and  sacramental  salvation.     The  Congregationalist  reads 


The  Religion  of  the  Bible.  145 

it  prayerfully,  and  comes  away  convinced  that  sacramental- 
ism  is  the  deadly  "works  of  the  law  "that  are  forbidden, 
and  that  every  believer  is  his  own  all-sufficient  priest.  The 
Baptist  looks  into  it,  and  sees  all  true  believers  going  clean 
under  the  water  ;  while  most  other  sects  see  them  only  going 
down  to  the  edge  of  the  water  and  standing  there  to  be  sprin- 
kled. Cromwell  and  his  Roundheads  read  it,  and  saw  every- 
where "  the  Lord  of  Hosts  "  leading  on  his  followers  to  battle; 
and  they  went  out  shouting,  "  The  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of 
Gideon ! "  The  Quaker  reads  it,  and  finds  everywhere  "  the 
Prince  of  Peace,"  hears  only  the  command,  "Resist  not 
evil,"  and  repeats  after  his  Master,  "  He  that  takes  the  sword 
shall  perish  by  the  sword."  The  Unitarian  reads  it,  and 
comes  away  flourishing  the  text,  "  My  Father  is  greater  than 
I " ;  and  he  remembers  that  Jesus  was  sometimes  ignorant, 
was  weary  and  hungry,  and  seemed  in  all  points  a  man. 
The  Trinitarian  goes  into  the  same  armory,  and  comes  out 
wielding  the  phrase,  "  I  and  my  Father  are  one."  The  Ortho- 
dox sees  overshadowing  all  the  pages  the  dreadful  image  of 
justice  and  wrath,  says,  "  Our  God  is  a  consuming  fire,"  and 
sees  this  fiery  wrath  flaming  against  his  enemies  even  to 
the  lowest  hell.  The  Universalist  sees  only  the  loving 
"heavenly  Father,"  and  turns  the  most  awful  forebodings 
into  Oriental  tropes  and  pictorial  rhetoric.  The  Mormon 
picks  out  phrases  to  bolster  up  his  polygamy ;  the  monoga- 
mist falls  back  on  Adam  and  Eve,  and  cries  out  even  against 
divorce  ;  while  the  Shaker,  on  the  basis  of  the  personal  ex- 
ample and  specific  words  of  Jesus,  forbids  all  sexual  relations 
whatever.  The  Northerner  loaded  his  gun  with  texts,  and 
went  out  to  fight  for  freedom ;  while  the  Southerner  quoted 
Noah's  curse  against  Ham,  and  the  patriarchal  example, 
and  so  met  Bible  with  Bible  in  defence  of  slavery. 

What,  then,  is  this  strange   book?     The  gypsy  fortune- 


146  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

teller  sometimes  invites  her  maiden  inquirer  to  look  into  her 
magic  mirror,  and  assures  her  that  she  shall  see  the  face  of 
her  future  husband.  She  looks  and  sees  her  own ;  and,  for 
explanation,  she  gets  the  intelligence  that,  when  married, 
her  face  will  be  her  husband's.  Is  the  Bible  a  magic  mirror, 
in  which  every  comer  sees  his  own  face  reflected  ?  All 
these  sects  —  mutually  exclusive,  contradictory,  antagonistic 
— appeal  with  equal  confidence  to  the  same  book  as  the 
charter  of  their  rights  and  the  ground  of  their  authority. 
Each  one  is  sure  that  it  is  right,  and  equally  sure  that  all 
the  others  are  wrong.  And,  until  recent  times,  there  has 
been  a  short  and  easy  way  of  accounting  for  all  dissentient 
opinion.  Each  sect  has  said,  "  All  good  and  honest  people 
see  it  as  I  do.  A  different  opinion  means  wilful  blindness 
and  a  bad  heart."  And,  since  they  have  all  held  it  the  plain 
duty  of  "the  Lord's  people"  to  destroy  his  enemies,  and 
since  each  one  has  held  it  self-evident  that  its  enemies  and 
the  Lord's  enemies  were  the  same,  the  dominant  sect  has 
generally  thought  best  to  give  its  opponents  a  foretaste  in 
this  world  of  the  Lord's  "  uncovenanted  mercies  "  stored  up 
in  the  nether  regions  of  the  next. 

But  thoughtful  people  are  beginning  to  wonder  if  it  can 
be  possible  that  a  book  that  is  read  in  so  many  different 
ways  can  teach  one  and  only  one  system  of  truth.  They  are 
beginning  to  wonder  if  it  can  be  a  plain  revelation  that 
reveals  so  many  different  things.  Of  course,  if  one  is  at 
liberty  to  pick  and  choose,  to  wink  hard  when  you  come  to 
the  hard  places,  to  twist  texts  by  private  interpretation  until 
you  get  a  meaning  out  of  them  that  their  writer  never 
thought  of,  to  adopt  Swedenborg's  method,  and  make  pas- 
sages mean  almost  anything  except  what  they  say, —  why, 
then,  of  course,  one  can  get  any  teaching  he  pleases  out  of 
anything.     The  spelling-book  or  the  dictionary  might  serve 


The  Religion  of  the  Bible.  147 

for  a  Bible,  if  it  can  be  treated  in  that  way.  In  one  of  his 
humorous  letters  during  the  war,  Nasby  said  that  the  text, 
"  Cursed  be  Canaan,"  and  Paul's  directions  about  returning 
the  fugitive  slave,  Onesimus,  were  to  be  taken  literally :  "  all 
the  rest  of  the  Bible  is  figurative."  If  one  may  treat  as 
"  figurative  "  whatever  he  does  not  happen  to  like  or  want  to 
believe,  why  then,  all  of  us  can  believe  the  Bible,  and  get  out 
of  it  anything  we  please.  But,  I  take  it,  we  will  all  agree 
that,  intellectually,  this  is  hardly  respectable,  and  that,  mor- 
ally, it  is  not  quite  honest. 

Turning  then  and  looking  at  the  Bible  with  wide-open, 
reasonable  eyes,  what  do  we  find  it  to  be  ?  It  contains 
snatches  of  rude  song  and  fragments  of  custom-made  law 
that  are  perhaps  two  thousand  years  older  than  Christ ;  and 
it  is  not  completed  for  two  hundred  years  after  his  time. 
Tradition,  history,  law,  theology,  ethics,  proverb,  idyl,  poetry, 
letters,  authentic,  anonymous,  pseudonymous,  all  mingled 
together !  It  is  not  a  book :  it  is  a  national  literature. 
Suppose  I  should  make  a  compilation.  Let  me  gather  the 
fragments  of  far-off  Saxon  sagas  and  legal  maxims;  put 
in  a  little  of  the  Venerable  Bede,  of  Beowulf,  of  Chaucer; 
include  some  of  Froissart's  Chronicles  and  a  play  of 
Shakspere ;  make  a  collection  of  English  and  American  law, 
history,  and  poetry;  let  me  bind  them  all  together  in  one 
volume ;  then  let  me  try  to  gather  out  of  it  all  one  simple 
system  of  belief,  in  which  all  the  variety  and  contradiction 
should  harmonize, —  what  would  you  think  of  such  an 
attempt?  I  can  imagine  you  admiring  my  ingenuity,  but 
it  would  certainly  be  at  the  expense  of  my  judgment.  Very 
like  this  is  the  effort  of  those  who  try  to  get  out  of  the 
Bible  one  consistent  system  of  religious  teaching.  The 
Bible,  as  I  have  said,  is  not  a  book,  but  a  national  literature. 
It  is  the  biography  of   a  race.      It  is  predominantly  a  relig- 


148  Beliefs   about  the   Bible. 

ious  literature,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  national  genius 
was  predominantly  religious.  Their  God  was  also  king ;  and 
so  law  and  custom,  politics  and  poetry,  were  all  looked  at 
from  the  theocratic  stand-point. 

But  this  peculiar  feature  of  the  Biblical  literature  brings 
out  in  strong  relief  two  very  important  facts,  that  we  need 
carefully  to  note  before  we  go  on  in  our  search. 

1.  It  shows  us  that  religion  is  natural,  a  part  of  the  nature 
of  things, —  something  not  put  on  like  a  garment,  and  that 
thus  can  be  as  easily  thrown  off.  It  is  a  part  of  human 
nature,  and  so  as  permanent  as  human  nature  itself.  Those 
who  seek  for  it  a  supernatural  origin  and  grouncf  render  it 
a  very  doubtful  homage  and  service.  For  if  it  is  not  an 
inherent  part  of  human  nature,  but  something  thrust  into 
the  system  from  without,  then  human  nature  may  some  day 
decide  to  thrust  it  off,  and  get  on  without  it.  But,  in  reality, 
it  is  man's  eternal  search  for  the  secret  of  life,  his  endeavor 
to  get  into  right  relation  with  the  nature  of  things. 

2.  The  other  fact  is  this:  since  it  is  a  part  of  human 
nature,  we  should  expect  to  find  its  form  growing  and  chang- 
ing, just  as  the  external  manifestations  of  all  the  other 
elements  of  human  nature  grow  and  change.  So,  instead 
of  being  troubled  by  the  early  crudenesses  and  the  kaleido- 
scopic changes  in  theology,  these  things  are  just  what  we 
ought  to  expect. 

There  is,  then,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  words,  no  such 
thing  as  "  the  Religion  of  the  Bible."  Instead  of  that, 
there  are  the  religions  of  the  Bible.  Or,  if  you  prefer 
another  way  of  putting  it,  there  is  the  eternal  search  for 
God,  taking  on  ever  new  and  higher  forms  and  phases,  to 
keep  step  with  the  growing  intelligence  and  civilization 
of  man. 

Not  as  exhausting,  but  only  indicating  the  facts,  let  us  now 


The  Religion  of  the  Bible,  149 

trace  some  of  the  more  important  features  of  some  of  the 
different  religions  of  the  Bible. 

I.  As,  then,  we  turn  to  the  oldest  traditions  of  the  religion 
of  Israel,  not  only  do  we  find  no  Christianity,  which  so  many 
claim  to  be  the  religion  of  the  Bible,  but  we  find  no  Judaism ; 
neither  do  we  find  even  the  tribal  worship  of  Yahveh.  We 
are  face  to  face  with  pure  and  simple  nature  worship  in  its 
crudest  forms.  We  find  the  traces  of  fetichism  all  around 
us,  such  a  fetichism  as  to-day  goes  along  with  and  indicates 
the  lower  barbarism  of  tribes  like  the  Fijis  or  those  of 
Central  Africa. 

For  example,  we  find  the  worship  of  sacred  trees,  sacred 
stones,  sacred  serpents,  sacred  animals,  a  sacred  box  or 
ark,  divination  like  that  of  the  old  augurs,  sex-worship,  the 
worship  of  the  planets,  and  an  attempt  to  appease  the 
ferocious  god  by  human  sacrifices.  It  is  quite  true  that 
the  later  writers  attempted  to  interpret  all  these  things  in 
the  light  of  their  later  monotheism,  just  as  the  Catholic 
Church  incorporated  the  older  paganism,  and  tried  to  make 
it  a  part  of  Christianity.  But  that  does  not  change  the 
facts.  The  common  people  worshipped  the  sacred  oaks 
at  Mamre,  though  later  times  tried  to  explain  this  popular 
reverence  by  associating  them  with  a  supposed  camping 
station  of  Abraham.  Jacob  pays  reverence  to  a  stone 
where  he  has  a  wondrous  dream.  Moses  lifts  up  a  brazen 
serpent,  supposed  to  possess  magical  curative  virtues.  At 
the  exodus,  and  even  as  late  as  after  the  death  of  Solomon, 
Yahveh  is  worshipped  under  the  image  of  a  bull.  And  the 
Temple  itself  perpetuated  the  remnants  of  the  old  bull- 
worship  by  the  horns  attached  to  the  altar,  and  the  twelve 
brazen  oxen  which  stood  under  and  held  up  the  laver  used 
for  the  sacred  lustrations.  The  Israelite  armies  supposed 
they   carried    their    god    around    in   a  box   or   ark.      The 


150  Beliefs   about   the  Bible. 

Philistines  could  capture  him,  and  leave  them  defenceless 
without  his  aid.  Rachel  steals  the  gods  of  her  father 
Laban,  hides  them  under  the  camel  furnishings  in  her  tent, 
and  sits  upon  them.  Divination,  like  that  of  all  the  pagan 
nations,  was  practised  by  patriarchs,  by  Samuel,  by  David, 
by  the  High  Priests,  and  even  by  New  Testament  apostles. 
Sex-worship  —  the  Ashera,  translated  "grove"  in  the  Old 
Testament,  was  a  symbol  of  it  —  was  practised  with  all 
kinds  of  abominable  rites.  The  festival  of  the  new  moon, 
and  the  Sabbath  itself,  show  the  general  hold  of  planet- 
worship  on  the  life  of  the  people.  And  Abraham,  Jephthah, 
Samuel,  David,  and  many  of  the  later  kings,  illustrate  the 
early  practice  and  the  very  late  hold  on  the  public  mind 
of  human  sacrifice. 

These  things  are  not  strange.  Since  all  races  have  passed 
through  these  crude  and  brutal  stages  of  religious  develop- 
ment, we  ought  not  to  wonder  that  Israel  does  the  same. 
Only  these  facts  are  not  quite  consistent  with  a  special 
revelation,  or  with  the  notion  that  the  Bible  contains  but 
one  religion. 

2.  After  nature  worship  there  comes  a  general  popular 
recognition  of  allegiance  to  one  god. 

This  does  not  mean  that  they  always  worshipped  only 
him,  nor  that  that  they  disbelieved  the  existence  of  any 
others.  It  only  means  that  they  had  adopted  him  as  their 
tribal  god.  That  they  continued  to  worship  others  is 
apparent  all  the  way  through  the  Old  Testament.  The 
prophets  are  always  rebuking  them  for  it,  and  their  calami- 
ties are  always  being  attributed  to  it.  Though,  on  this 
theory,  it  is  a  little  strange  that  an  idolatrous  king  like 
Manasseh  has  a  long  and  prosperous  reign,  while  the  faithful 
servant  of  Yahveh,  like  Josiah,  is  cut  off  in  disastrous 
defeat. 


The  Religion  of  the  Bible.  151 

As  long  as  they  believed  in  the  real  existence  and  power 
of  other  gods,  it  is  hardly  strange  that  they  should  try  to 
win  their  favor.  Mr.  Conway  tells  us  of  a  Christian  woman 
in  England  who  always  bows  when  the  devil's  name  is 
mentioned ;  prudently  arguing  that,  if  he  really  exists  and  is 
as  powerful  as  he  is  represented,  it  may  be  just  as  well  to 
keep  on  the  right  side  of  him. 

Some  of  the  very  texts  that  are  frequently  quoted  to 
prove  a  monotheistic  belief  on  the  part  of  the  Jews,  in 
reality  prove  just  the  opposite.  Yahveh  is  "  King  of  kings 
and  Lord  of  lords,"  a  "great  King  above  all  gods."  The 
lords  and  gods  over  whom  he  is  supreme  must  exist,  or  such 
words  mean  nothing. 

And  it  is  absurd,  also,  to  try  to  think  that  the  god  of  Sam- 
uel and  David  is  the  same  being  as  the  god  of  the  second 
Isaiah  and  of  Jesus.  The  older  conception  is  of  a  being 
who  comes  down  on  earth,  as  Jupiter  and  Mercury  used  to 
do,  and  walks  about,  talks,  and  eats  like  a  man.  He  is 
jealous ;  he  is  ignorant,  having  to  go  down  to  Babel  and 
Sodom  to  see  what  is  going  on ;  he  makes  mistakes  and 
repents;  he  likes  the  smell  of  a  burning  ox  offered  in 
sacrifice ;  he  rejoices  over  the  destruction  of  an  enemy  like 
a  red-handed  tribal  war-chief. 

3.  But,  as  ages  go  by,  and  the  people  rise  to  a  higher 
type  of  civilization,  the  popular  god  is  transformed,  and 
reflects  this  higher  type  of  civilization.  We  are  face  to  face 
with  a  spiritual  monotheism.  To  the  higher  prophets,  only 
one  god  really  exists :  "  All  the  gods  of  the  nations 
are  idols."  They  have  ears,  eyes,  hands,  and  feet;  but 
they  neither  hear,  see,  handle,  nor  walk.  And  this 
higher  god  cares  nothing  for  their  sacrifices  nor  the  smell 
of  their  burnt  offerings.  He  only  wants  truth  in  the  inward 
parts  and   righteousness   of   life.      How  different  he  from 


152  Beliefs  about   the   Bible. 

the  old  god  who  himself  inspired  prophets  to  lie,  glorified 
treachery,  sanctioned  rape,  and  took  delight  in  the  blood 
of  his  enemies !  The  highest  peak  of  the  Old  Testament 
is  reached  when  Micah  proclaims,  "What  doth  the  Lord 
require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk 
humbly  with  thy  God  ? " 

Here  is  a  religion  of  simple  moral  monotheism, —  one  god 
only,  and  he  to  be  worshipped  only  by  lofty-souled  reverence 
and  human  goodness. 

4.  But  Israel  does  not  remain  on  this  lofty  table-land  of 
noble  thought  and  pure  devotion.  From  this  time  ,on  to 
the  birth  of  Jesus  there  is  a  declension  toward  the  lower 
level  of  legalism^  ritual^  and  ceremony.  The  free  inspiration 
of  the  prophets  has  died  out,  and  they  begin  to  look  back 
and  live  on  the  past.  Instead  of  being  themselves  inspired, 
they  worship  the  records  of  a  past  inspiration.  Sacrifices 
and  tithes  and  petty  observances  take  the  place  of  character 
and  noble  deeds.  They  quarrel  over  such  questions  as  to 
how  often  and  in  what  ways  they  shall  wash  their  hands. 
They  measure  off  the  precise  distance  which  it  is  permitted 
one  to  walk  on  the  Sabbath.  They  wear  charms  about  their 
persons,  made  up  of  magical  texts  of  Scripture.  They 
buy  supposed  merit  at  the  expense  of  long  and  tedious 
prayers.  They  hamper  every  hour  of  the  day  with  some 
petty  observance,  to  break  over  which  they  think  will  incur 
the  anger  of  their  god. 

But  what  a  god  he  must  be  to  care  for  such  humdrum 
boy's  play  as  all  this !  This  is  the  second  childhood  of  a 
religion,  the  decrepitude  of  an  age  that  can  only  sit  by  the 
fireside,  and  tell  over  what  it  has  done. 

And,  in  all  these  forms  of  the  older  religions,  one  impor- 
tant fact  is  to  be  specially  remarked.  Those  who  talk  about 
"  the  relidon  of  the  Bible  "are  accustomed  to  tell  us  that 


The  Religion  of  the  Bible.  153 

the  one  object  of  it  all  is  to  save  our  souls  in  the  next  world. 
But,  throughout  these  four  forms  of  religion  to  be  so  clearly- 
traced  in  the  Old  Testament,  soul-saving  in  the  next  world 
has  played  no  part  at  all.  Until  the  very  last  there  was  no 
popular  belief  in  or  teaching  about  any  next  world  at  all. 
Until  within  two  thousand  years,  then,  this  same  God  (as 
the  popular  faith  teaches),  who  is  now  so  anxious  to  have  us 
save  our  souls,  never  told  the  world,  never  told  his  chosen 
people,  that  they  had  any  souls,  or  that  there  was  any  next 
world  !  When  these  old  Jews  come  up  to  judgment  and 
ask  God  why  he  did  not  let  them  know  about  it,  what  will 
he  answer  ?  Is  it  not  even  absurd  for  men  who  claim  to  be 
intelligent  to  tell  us  that  two  religions,  the  sole  object  of 
one  of  which  is  to  save  people  in  the  other  world,  and  the 
other  of  which  does  not  teach  any  other  world  at  all,  are  still 
one  and  the  same  ?  Jewish  rewards  and  punishments,  down 
almost  to  the  time  of  Christ,  were  all  confined  to  this  world. 

5.  But  now  we  have  come  to  still  another  and  a  new  relig- 
ion. Jewish  hopes  and  Persian  dreams  have  wrought 
together.  Pagan  speculations  and  Israelite  apocalypses,  like 
the  Book  of  Enoch,  have  filled  the  air  with  vague  expecta- 
tions. The  people  are  looking,  either  through  revolution  on 
earth  or  an  avatar  from  heaven,  for  the  coming  of  an  ideal 
kingdom.  John  appears  in  the  desert,  proclaiming  that  "the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."  The  young  Jesus  appears 
at  his  baptism,  and  is  designated  as  the  expected  Messianic 
king.  He  accepts  the  supposed  prophetic  appointment. 
But  he  carries  it  out  in  such  a  way  that  even  John  begins  to 
doubt  if  he  is  really  the  one,  and  sends  messengers  from  his 
prison  at  Machaerus  to  ask  him. 

What,  now,  really  was  the  religion  of  Jesus  ?  In  a  word,  it 
was  this.  Through  his  instrumentality,  God  was  soon  to  usher 
in,  suddenly  and  by  miracle,  a  kingdom  of  heaven.     It  was 


154  Beliefs   about  the  Bible, 

to  be  established  on  earth.  The  terms  of  admission  to  its 
divine  citizenship  were  very  simple.  Not  a  word  about 
Trinity  or  atonement, —  only  acceptance  of  him  as  the  Mes- 
siah ;  repentance,  or  a  practical  change  of  life  so  far  as  it 
had  been  evil ;  and  the  practical  living  out  of  moral  good- 
ness as  he  understood  and  taught  it.  The  dark  side  of  it 
was  —  if  it  be  really  true  that  Jesus  taught  it — the  going 
away  of  those  who  refused  his  conditions  "  into  everlasting 
punishment,  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels."  To 
Jesus,  the  devil  was  as  real  a  being  as  God  ;  and  he  undoubt- 
edly accepted  the  superstition  of  his  time  as  to  the  demoniacal 
origin  of  disease. 

Here,  then,  is  a  religion  entirely  distinct  from  anything  the 
Old  Testament  contains,  and  also  almost  altogether  unlike 
anything  that  later  ages  have  called  by  the  name  of 
Christian. 

I  am  aware  that  large  numbers  of  people  attempt  to  alle- 
gorize these  facts  all  away.  But  it  seems  to  me  neither 
scholarship  nor  plain  dealing  to  torture  the  language  of 
Jesus  into  conformity  with  modern  thought,  as  long  as  it  is 
perfectly  well  known  that  this  same  modern  thought  was 
unheard  of  in  that  age.  The  language  of  Jesus  is  to  be 
interpreted  in  the  light  of  the  beliefs  and  ideas  prevalent  at 
the  time  he  lived  and  spoke.  I  am  then  compelled  to  be- 
lieve that,  in  the  historic  sense  of  the  word,  Jesus  himself 
was  not  a  Christian.  He  was  a  theist,  pure  and  simple ;  or, 
in  the  sense  that  he  believed  in  only  one  God,  a  Unitarian. 

6.  But  the  New  Testament  contains  the  fruitful  germs  and 
outlines  of  another  religion  still.  There  is,  first,  the  religion 
of  Jesus  ;  and  then,  after  that,  there  is  a  religion  about  Jesus. 
Jesus  himself  did  not  teach  what  has  come  to  be  called  Chris- 
tianity ;  but  Christianity,  formed  of  many  composite  elements, 
grew  up  around  the  belief  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  and  so 


The  Religi07i  of  the  Bible.  155 

made  his  Messiahship,  the  Christos,  its  central  doctrine. 
Hence  the  name.  It  was  the  crystallized  result  of  the 
flowing  together  of  many  speculative  ingredients,  pagan, 
Jewish,  philosophic.  It  started  with  the  idea  of  "  the  king- 
dom of  God,"  just  as  Jesus  did.  At  first,  it  was  to  be  here 
on  earth ;  then,  after  long  waiting  and  many  disappointments, 
it  was  transferred  to  the  other  world.  But  it  radically  di- 
verged from  the  teaching  of  Jesus  in  regard  to  the  condi- 
tions of  entrance  into  that  kingdom.  The  man  Jesus  was 
changed  into  a  god ;  and  about  this  central  article  of  faith 
there  clustered  an  aggregation  of  mystic,  philosophic,  and 
speculative  beliefs,  the  acceptance  of  all  of  which  became 
the  condition  of  salvation.  Around  these  beliefs  grew  a 
thorny  hedge  of  ceremonial,  as  tangled  and  luxuriant  in 
its  development  as  the  world  had  ever  seen.  The  guard- 
ians of  these  became  dominant,  and  made  it  so  hard  to  be 
saved  that  hell  grew  populous  and  heaven  exceedingly  lone- 
some. 

Then,  as  ages  went  by,  came  revolt,  and  the  multiplication 
of  sects,  each  one  claiming  it  had  the  whole  gospel.  And,  as 
each  one  emphasized  this  doctrine  or  that,  the  conditions  of 
salvation  became  multiplied  and  bewildering.  It  was  faith, 
it  was  works,  it  was  ritual  and  sacrament,  it  was  the  blood, 
it  was  one  thing  or  another  according  to  the  church  you  at- 
tended or  the  preacher  you  heard.  All  pointed  to  the  Bible ; 
and,  since  all  these  things  are  in  the  Bible,  it  is  not  very 
strange  that  those  who  look  should  find  almost  anything 
that  they  desire. 

Dr.  George  E.  Ellis  has  recently  raised  the  question  —  and 
a  storm  at  the  same  time  —  as  to  whether  the  Bible  is  ortho- 
dox. You  might  as  well  ask  as  to  whether  English  Litera- 
ture is  orthodox.  It  is,  and  it  is  not.  It  all  depends  upon 
what  part  of  it  you  read.     If  you  fix  your  attention  on  one 


156  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

phase  of  teaching,  and  if  you  then  consider  everything  that 
contradicts  that  as  figurative,  why,  then,  it  becomes  compara- 
tively easy  to  harmonize  the  whole  around  a  few  ideas.  But, 
if  you  take  the  Bible  for  what  it  is, —  a  national  religious 
literature, —  you  will  cease  talking  about  "  the  religion  of  the 
Bible."  You  will  trace  the  upward  steps  and  stages  of 
growth  in  religion,  as  well  as  in  all  other  things  ;  and,  look- 
ing forward  instead  of  behind,  you  will  learn  to  believe  that 
God  is  really  alive  to-day,  and  that  his  last  word  is  not  yet 
spoken. 


THE  MORALITY  OF  THE  BIBLE. 


I  WISH  to  give  expression  to  just  one  word  of  preface 
before  beginning  the  treatment  of  my  theme,  lest  the  purpose 
that  I  have  in  view,  and  the  method  of  carrying  out  that 
purpose,  shall  be  misunderstood.  If  we  could  only  take 
this  grand  old  book  for  what  it  really  is,  for  what  it  really 
claims  to  be,  how  gladly  would  I  spend  my  time  not  in 
criticism,  but  in  eulogy;  for  it  occupies  a  unique  position 
in  the  history  of  our  race.  On  the  basis  of  what  it  claims 
to  be,  there  is  no  grander  book  in  the  world.  You  will 
understand  then  that,  in  what  I  am  about  to  do  this  morn- 
ing, I  am  not  criticising  the  Bible,  I  am  not  finding  fault 
with  its  ethical  teaching ;  I  am  only  criticising  a  theory,  a 
conception  of  the  Bible,  a  teaching  about  it,  which  has 
dominated  the  world  for  centuries,  and  which,  as  I  believe, 
stands  in  the  way  of  the  world's  further  and  nobler  progress. 


There  are  two  questions  that  must  be  asked  and  answered, 
in  order  that  we  may  understand  the  position  which  this 
book  holds  in  regard  to  the  ethical  teachings  of  the  world. 

In  the  first  place,  does  the  Bible  contain  one,  and  only 
one,  system  of  ethical  teaching?  Is  the  teaching  in  the 
early  part  of  the  book  the  same  as  that  of  the  middle  and 
latter  part?      Are  there  no  signs  of  progress  and  growth 


158  Beliefs   about   the   Bible. 

such  as  we  find  connected  with  the  other  religions  of  the 
world  ? 

The  next  question  is :  Is  the  highest  ethical  teaching  of 
the  Bible  perfect  and  complete,  meeting  the  wants  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  capable  of  satisfying  the  needs  of 
any  possible  development  of  human  life  and  thought  in  the 
future?  If  the  Bible  contains  one  system,  and  only  one, 
and  if  that  one  system  is  perfect  and  divine,  then  we  should 
be  able  to  believe,  when  we  take  this  book  in  our  hands, 
that  we  actually  held  a  divine  and  infallible  revelation.  But, 
if  there  is  more  than  one  system,  and  if  one  system  is  higher 
than  another ;  if  there  are  traces  and  evidences  of  growth, 
and  if  the  highest  teaching  is  not  complete  and  perfect  for 
all  time, — why  then,  of  course,  we  shall  not  be  able  to  believe 
that  we  have  an  infallible  and  divine  revelation  of  moral 
truth.  They  who  deal  in  apology  or  defence  of  the  Bible 
talk  to  us  of  a  progressive  revelation.  But  a  "  progressive 
revelation  "  is  an  absurdity,  on  the  theory  of  a  divine  and 
infallible  one.  If,  for  example,  God  gave  light  and  guidance 
to  the  Hebrews  only  so  fast  and  so  far  as  they  were  intellect- 
ually developed  enough  to  appreciate  it,  so  that  they  received 
comparatively  the  same  kind  of  light  that  other  nations 
received  at  the  same  stage  or  degree  of  development,  then 
we  are  reduced  to  the  absurdity  of  supposing  that  God 
reveals  truth  only  as  fast  as  people  are  capable  of  finding  it 
out  for  themselves;  which  of  course  is  a  contradiction  in 
terms.     These,  then,  are  the  two  questions. 

Leaving  one  side,  now,  for  the  moment,  all  thought  of  a 
divine  revelation  of  moral  truth,  looking  abroad  over  the 
world  and  tracing  the  origin  and  development  of  ethical 
principles,  we  find  this  one  thing  everywhere  plainly  to  be 
observed  :  In  all  parts  of  the  world,  among  nations  that  have 
reached  substantially  the  same  level  of  intelligence,  the  same 


The  Morality  of  the  Bible.  159 

grade  of  civilization,  and  are  in  substantially  similar  circum- 
stances of  life,  we  find  substantially  the  same  ethical  princi- 
ples and  precepts.  That  is,  people  in  China,  when  they 
had  risen  to  a  certain  level  of  intellectual  and  moral  devel- 
opment, held  substantially  the  same  ideas  of  character  and 
conduct  that  people  in  Egypt  held,  when  they  had  reached 
the  same  level  or  a  similar  one.  We  find  the  same  natural 
process  of  growth  at  work  as  in  the  vegetable  world.  If 
you  climb  up  the  sides  of  the  Alps,  so  many  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  sea,  and  then  climb  up  the  same  height  above 
the  level  of  the  sea  on  the  sides  of  the  Andes,  if  you  do  not 
find  the  same  vegetable  growths,  you  find  corresponding  ones, 
in  similar  circumstances.     This  is  the  method  of  nature. 

If,  then,  we  should  find  no  revelation  touching  the  matter 
of  right  and  wrong,  we  should  expect  to  find  this  principle 
at  work  everywhere.  Outside  of  the  Bible,  we  do  find  this 
principle  at  work.  We  find  in  similar  circumstances,  in 
similar  grades  of  development,  and  in  similar  grades  of  intel- 
ligence, similar  precepts  and  principles.  If  we  shall  find 
substantially  the  same  thing  true  concerning  the  Bible,  then, 
of  course,  we  must  surrender  the  idea  that  here  is  anything 
supernatural  or  exceptional.  We  must  place  Bible  ethics  in 
the  same  natural  category  and  classification  with  all  the  rest 
that  we  can  discover. 

Before  discussing  Bible  ethics,  simply  as  a  suggestion,  a 
hint  of  what  may  be  found  in  other  places,  as  a  sort  of  back- 
ground to  my  thought,  I  wish  to  give  you  two  or  three  speci- 
mens of  the  ethics  of  ancient  Egypt,  that  you  may  see  what 
kind  of  ideas,  what  sort  of  conception  of  God  and  duty,  men 
were  capable  of  attaining  and  really  did  attain  three  thousand 
years  at  least  before  Christ  was  born.  In  the  first  quotation 
that  I  shall  make,  you  will  perceive  their  conception  of  God. 
This,  of  course,  while  a  part  of  religion,  is  also  a  part  of 


i6o  Beliefs   about   the   Bible. 

ethics.  If  you  can  find  out  what  sort  of  character  men 
attribute  to  God,  you  will  find  a  reflection  on  the  sky  of  their 
own  moral  conceptions  of  that  which  is  highest  and  best. 
Within  recent  years,  a  large  part  of  the  sacred  literature  of 
ancient  Egypt  has  been  recovered.  On  monuments,  in 
papyrus  rolls,  on  tombs,  and  preserved  in  many  different 
ways,  have  been  found  sayings  which  date  back  beyond  the 
popularly  supposed  period  of  the  occurence  of  the  flood, — 
perhaps  some  of  them  older  than  the  creation  itself,  as  dated 
by  the  popular  chronology. 

Here  are  a  few  of  these  sayings, —  the  first  addressed  to 
God :  — 

"  Every  one  glorifies  thy  goodness.  Mild  is  thy  love  toward  us :  thy 
tenderness  surrounds  our  hearts.  Great  is  thy  love  in  all  the  souls  of 
men." 

"Let  not  thy  face  be  turned  away  from  us  :  the  joy  of  our  hearts  is  to 
contemplate  thee.  Chase  all  anguish  from  our  hearts.  He  wipes  tears 
from  off  all  faces." 

"  Hail  to  thee,  Ra,  Lord  of  all  truth  ;  who  listeneth  to  the  poor  in  his 
distress ;  gentle  of  heart,  when  we  cry  to  thee ;  deliverer  of  the  timid 
man  from  the  violent;  judging  the  poor,  the  poor  and  the  oppressed; 
sovereign  of  life,  health,  and  strength." 

"  The  heart  of  man  is  no  secret  to  him  that  made  it.  He  is  present 
with  thee,  though  thou  be  alone." 

Then  here  is  a  fragment  from  an  inscription  on  a  tomb, 
giving  the  idea  of  the  writer  as  to  what  kind  of  life  he  should 
have  lived :  — 

"  I  honored  my  father  and  my  mother.  I  loved  my  brothers.  I  taught 
little  children.  I  took  care  of  orphans  as  though  they  had  been  my  own 
children." 

There  has  been  recently  brought  to  light,  from  the  ruins 
of  that  old  civilization,  almost  a  complete  work,  called  the 
Maxims  of  Ptahhotep,   which   dates   from   the   age   of    the 


The  Morality  of  the  Bible. 


Pyramids,  and  which  even  then  refers  to  the  authority  of 
ancient  times.  It  is  the  most  ancient  book  in  the  world, 
as  far  as  is  known.  Rdnouf,  the  great  French  Egyptian 
scholar,  says  that  "  they  inculcate  the  study  of  wisdom,  the 
duty  to  parents  and  superiors,  respect  for  property,  the 
advantages  of  charitableness,  peaceableness  and  content, 
of  liberality,  humility,  chastity,  and  sobriety,  of  truthfulness 
and  justice."  M.  Chabas,  who  first  gave  the  book  to  the 
world,  says :  "  None  of  the  Christian  virtues  is  forgotten  in 
it :  piety,  charity,  gentleness,  self-command  in  word  and 
action,  chastity,  the  protection  of  the  weak,  benevolence 
toward  the  humble,  deference  to  superiors,  respect  for 
property  in  its  minutest  details, —  all  is  expressed  there, 
and  in  extremely  clear  language." 

We  cannot  resist  drawing  the  inference  from  this  that,  if 
ancient  Egypt  three  thousand  years  before  Christ  was  capa- 
ble, without  a  revelation,  of  attaining  to  a  knowledge  and, 
in  some  degree,  to  a  practice  of  all  the  finest  so-called  Chris- 
tian virtues,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  make  out  any  necessity 
for  a  revelation,  in  order  to  teach  these  a  thousand  or  two 
years  later  to  another  people. 

Had  I  time,  I  would  like  to  place  beside  these  one  speci- 
men from  the  Mahdbhdrata,  the  great  Indian  or  Hindu  epic. 
There  is  one  selection  which  I  am  obliged  to  think  is  finer, 
higher,  more  humane  than  anything  which  the  whole  Bible 
contains.  It  represents  one  of  seven  brothers,  the  last  of 
the  seven,  standing  at  the  entrance  to  the  Indian  heaven. 
His  six  brothers,  his  wife,  and  his  faithful  dog,  the  constant 
companions  of  his  life,  have  fallen  by  the  way;  and  he 
stands  alone  at  the  gates.  The  gods  come  down  to  welcome 
him  j  and  there  is  a  throne  waiting  him,  vacant  till  he  shall 
occupy  it.  They  bid  him  come  in,  but  he  stands  there,  and 
asks  the  gods  what  is  to  become  of  his  brothers,  his  wife, 


l62  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

and  his  dog ;  and,  until  he  is  assured  that  they  also  shall 
share  his  bliss  and  his  glory,  he  turns  his  back  on  the 
heavens,  and  refuses  to  enter.  I  know  of  nothing  in  all 
religious  literature  higher,  finer,  grander  than  that.  Cer- 
tainly, it  compares  most  favorably  with  the  old  Puritan 
picture  of  the  saints  leaning  over  the  battlements  of  heaven, 
and  enjoying  the  spectacle  and  listening  to  the  groans  of 
their  brethren  in  eternal  torments  below. 

I  now  turn,  to  treat,  as  briefly  as  I  can,  some  suggestions 
concerning  the  moral  teachings  of  the  Old  Testament  and 
the  New. 

I.  First,  let  us  look  at  the  Old  Testament,  and  attempt  to 
answer  my  first  question,  whether  there  is  one  system  of 
teaching  in  the  Bible,  whether  the  Old  Testament  teaches 
the  same  as  the  New.  Of  course,  in  so  brief  a  review,  I 
must  omit  many  points.  I  only  intend  to  take  up  specimens 
here  and  there. 

One  of  the  first  things  we  come  across  is  the  doctrine  of 
revenge,  or  retaliation.  We  find  in  the  Old  Testament  that 
practice  which,  in  Southern  Europe,  in  tales  of  love  and  pas- 
sion, we  are  familiar  with  as  the  vendetta^  or  the  duty  of  the 
living  relatives  of  a  man  who  has  been  murdered,  or  killed 
by  accident,  to  pursue  and  relentlessly  revenge  the  death  of 
the  murdered  man.  We  find  this  taught  and  indorsed  by 
Yahveh  himself,  who  goes  so  far  as  to  establish  certain 
cities  of  refuge  where  a  man  might  flee,  provided  he  had 
killed  a  man  by  accident,  or,  as  we  should  say,  in  case  of 
justifiable  homicide.  If  he  were  caught  before  he  reached 
that  city,  it  was  justifiable  to  put  him  to  death,  even  if 
he  had  not  intended  to  commit  murder.  That  is  a  part  of 
the  social  morality  of  the  Old  Testament.  Would  we  con- 
sider that  up  to  the  level  of  the  best  life  of  the  nineteenth 
century?    The   New  York    Nation    has  been   calling  very 


The  Morality  of  the  Bible,  163 

vigorous  and  earnest  attention  to  practices  similar  to  this 
in  the  South,  treating  them  as  evidence  of  savagery,  and 
calling  upon  the  South  to  cleanse  its  skirts  from  these  relics 
of  barbarism  before  they  can  expect  that  civilized  people  will 
go  there  to  live,  or  invest  their  capital  among  them.  This, 
then,  is  instinctively  pronouncing  judgment  on  this  kind  of 
ethics  by  the  conscience  of  the  modern  world. 

Turn  to  another  institution  which  is  taught  and  indorsed 
and  regulated  by  God  himself  in  the  Old  Testament,  the 
system  of  polygamy.  If  the  Bible  were  to  be  treated  like 
any  other  book,  I  should  not  have  a  word  to  say  against 
polygamy  in  the  Old  Testament.  There  was  a  time  when 
it  was  moral.  If  you  trace  the  upward  growth  of  social  life, 
you  will  find  that  man  began  several  grades  lower  down 
than  polygamy  j  and  polygamy  is  a  step  in  advance  of  that 
which  preceded  it.  It  is  part  way  up  the  ladder  from  where 
the  human  race  began  toward  the  position  we  now  occupy. 
I  should  have  nothing  against  polygamy  as  part  of  the  proc- 
ess of  the  social  development  of  the  world.  We  criticise 
it  to-day  only  because  the  world  has  outgrown  it.  It  was 
well  enough  in  its  time  and  place ;  but  the  world  has  now 
higher  moral  conceptions  of  social  order,  and  so  looks  down 
on  that  as  something  belonging  to  a  barbaric  past.  You 
know  how  we  look  upon  the  Mormons  to-day,  what  a  blot 
we  consider  it  on  the  national  escutcheon,  how  we  apologize 
for  it  and  hope  to  outgrow  it  and  leave  it  behind,  how  we  are 
ashamed  of  it  in  the  face  of  Europe ;  and  yet  it  is  recognized 
by  God  himself,  taught,  arranged  for,  ordered  by  him.  We 
find  ourselves,  on  the  orthodox  theory,  in  the  curious  position 
of  apologizing  for  God,  if  that  is  a  part  of  an  infallible  and 
eternal  revelation. 

Leaving  that,  we  come  to  slavery.  Slavery  is  recognized 
in  the  Old  Testament  as  right.    The  people  are  permitted 


164  Beliefs  about  the  Bible, 

not  only  to  buy  strangers,  but  their  own  race,  other  Jews. 
There  is  one  slight  mitigation,  when  they  are  dealing  with 
their  own  brethren.  Although  they  were  permitted  to  buy 
and  hold  a  Jew  as  a  slave,  after  six  years  he  was  set  free  by 
the  limitation  of  the  law  concerning  him.  But,  if  he  were 
married  and  had  become  the  father  of  children,  if  he  chose 
to  go  out  and  take  his  liberty,  he  had  to  leave  his  wife  and 
family  still  in  slavery, —  a  diabolically  ingenious  device  for 
keeping  him  in  slavery  himself ;  for  no  true  man  would  leave 
his  wife  and  children,  and  take  his  freedom  on  those  terms. 

In  regard  to  slavery,  I  should  say  precisely  as  concerning 
polygamy.  If  I  might  treat  it  from  the  stand-point  of  the 
natural  development  of  the  world,  it  would  need  no  apology 
in  the  Old  Testament.  Slavery  itself  was  once  relatively 
right.  It  was  relatively  better  than  that  type  of  social  life 
which  preceded  it.  It  took  the  place  of  the  indiscriminate 
slaughter  of  one's  enemies  in  time  of  war.  It  was  a  definite, 
distinct  step  upward  in  social  evolution ;  and  I  should  not 
be  called  to  apologize  for  it,  if  people  did  not  tell  me  that 
it  was  a  part  of  the  divine  revelation.  If  it  were,  it  must 
be  not  only  good  for  that  age,  but  for  any  and  every  age. 

Let  us  next  consider  the  Old  Testament  code  of  morals 
concerning  other  nations  in  time  of  war.  God  permits  —  nay, 
he  commands  —  wars  of  absolute  extermination.  He  com- 
mands them  to  put  to  death  men,  women,  and  children, 
infants  in  arms,  gray-headed  age,  even  to  destroy  the  very 
cattle  and  everything  which  had  belonged  to  the  tribe  with 
which  they  were  at  war.  Merciless  massacre  is  part  of  the 
ethics  of  the  Old  Testament.  Would  we  consider  anything 
like  that  as  justified  for  a  moment  in  regard  to  the  relations 
which  nations  maintain  with  each  other  in  the  nineteenth 
century  ?  If  there  were  a  respectable  people  on  the  face  of 
the  earth  capable  of  carrying  on  war  as  it  is  carried  on  there, 


The  Morality  of  the  Bible.  165 

under  divine  guidance  and  orders,  the  civilized  world  would 
rush  to  arms  to  compel  that  nation  to  be  humane. 

One  other  point.  I  have  said  that  the  conception  which 
any  people  hold  concerning  God  is  a  part  of  its  morality, 
because  the  character  of  the  deity  is  a  reflection  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  people  themselves.  What  kind  of  character, 
then,  must  we  attribute  to  these  old  Jews,  when  we  look  at 
the  kind  of  god  who  reveals  himself  through  a  large  part  of 
the  Old  Testament, —  a  god  who  is  jealous,  a  god  who  likes 
flattery,  a  god  who  is  cruel,  a  god  who  takes  delight  in  the 
cries  of  slaughtered  victims  and  in  the  smell  of  their  blood 
and  the  smoke  of  their  burnings,  a  god  who  permits  and 
accepts  human  sacrifices,  a  god  who  teaches  his  own  proph- 
ets to  lie,  a  god  who  commands  rape,  a  god  guilty  of  almost 
every  crime.  Of  course,  this  does  not  exhaust  the  Old 
Testament  teaching  concerning  God.  You  will  not  mis- 
understand me  so  crudely  as  that.  There  is  no  finer  teach- 
ing concerning  God  than  some  parts  of  the  Old  Testament 
furnish, — none  loftier,  none  nobler,  none  more  beautiful  : 
only  these  things  are  also  there.  They  are  a  part  of  the 
book.  And,  if  the  book  is  divine  and  infallible  revelation, 
then  these  are  divine  and  infallible  revelations  of  moral 
truth,  because  they  are  a  part  of  the  record.  I  need  not 
enlarge  upon  this  point,  in  order  to  enforce  upon  your  thought 
and  feeling  the  conviction  that  the  Jews  made  progress  just 
like  all  other  people  :  only  we  find  them  here  in  their  period 
of  barbaric  semi-development,  and  so  we  find  barbaric  morals, 
just  as  we  find  them  in  Asia,  Africa,  or  in  Europe,  among 
our  own  brutalized  and  barbaric  forefathers.  There  is  the 
finger-marks  of  a  natural  growth  in  moral  ideals,  precepts, 
and  principles  all  through  the  Old  Testament,  from  the 
lowest  beginning  up  to  the  sublime  spiritual  conceptions 
of  the  second  Isaiah,  as  high  and  lofty  a  flight  as  the  world 
contains. 


1 66  Beliefs   about   the  Bible. 

2.  Let  us  now  come  to  the  consideration  of  the  second 
question.  If  there  is  any  perfect  morality  anywhere  in  the 
Bible,  we  shall  expect  to  find  it  in  the  New  Testament.  It 
is  a  very  common  opinion  —  the  liberal  orthodox  are  begin- 
ning to  share  it  and  stand  by  it  —  that,  while  the  Old  Testa- 
ment contains  much  that  is  barbaric  and  outgrown,  the  New 
Testament,  at  any  rate,  is  perfect.  I  think  it  is  the  opinion 
of  large  numbers,  perhaps  the  majority,  of  liberals,  even  if 
they  reject  the  dogmatic  teachings  of  the  New  Testament, 
that  the  highest  part  of  it  is  supreme,  perfect,  final,  and 
cannot  be  outgrown.  I  think  it  is  a  very  common  fepling, 
on  the  part  of  liberal  Christians  generally,  that  Jesus  was  an 
absolutely  sinless,  perfect  being,  and  that  he  gave  a  perfect 
system  of  ethics  to  the  world.  I  shall  not  argue  the  question 
of  his  own  character,  as  it  is  not  a  part  of  my  theme.  I  will 
frankly  express  to  you  my  opinion  that  I  know  no  reason 
why  I  should  suppose  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  absolutely 
free  from  error  and  human  frailty.  I  know  no  reason  why  I 
should  suppose  that  he  was  perfect  in  every  particular. 
Sublime,  God-conscious,  noble,  sweet,  pure,  true, —  yes  ;  yet 
I  think  there  are  evident  traces  in  the  New  Testament  of 
his  sharing  the  limitations,  the  prejudices,  the  mistakes,  and 
the  common  frailties  of  man. 

But,  say  a  great  many,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  at  least, 
is  faultless.  I  think  it  is  a  common  opinion,  among  those  of 
the  liberal  faith,  that  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  a  perfect 
standard  of  moral  truth.  They  hold  it  up  before  the  world, 
and  demand  the  intellectual  and  moral  homage  of  mankind 
for  everything  which  it  contains.  But,  as  I  study  it,  I 
cannot  so  regard  it.  The  New  Testament  contains  in  es- 
sence, in  germ,  some  of  the  highest  and  finest  principles 
that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  If  the  saying  of  Jesus  con- 
cerning loving  God  and  man  with  all  the  heart  could  be 


The  Morality  of  the  Bible.  167 

expanded  and  carried  out  practically,  with  all  the  light  of 
the  growing  intelligence  of  the  world ;  if  it  could  enter  into 
all  the  details  of  human  character, —  it  would  make  a  perfect 
world ;  but  a  system  of  ethics  is  not  to  be  judged  by  some 
germ  principle,  but  by  the  interpretation  of  that  principle  as 
it  falls  from  the  lips  of  the  teacher  himself. 

Let  us,  then,  test  this  Sermon  on  the  Mount  in  two  or 
three  directions,  by  looking  at  some  of  the  specific  applica- 
tions of  ethical  principles  which  fall  from  the  lips  of  Jesus. 

Before  I  pass  to  specify  those  parts,  I  wish  to  make  one 
or  two  remarks  concerning  the  attitude  which  the  world 
holds  toward  this  wondrous  discourse.  I  do  not  believe 
there  is  a  single  orthodox  person  or  church  in  the  world, 
which  even  tries,  strictly  and  literally,  to  obey  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount.  If  any  body  of  people,  any  city,  any  town,  any 
tribe,  any  nation,  should  attempt  to  carry  out  these  teachings 
literally,  it  would  bring  the  world,  as  far  as  they  were  con- 
cerned, to  a  stand-still.  In  other  words,  many  of  those  prin- 
ciples are  simply  impracticable.  They  never  have  been 
carried  out  and  never  can  be  in  this  kind  of  a  world.  Those 
who  laud  them  the  most  never  think  of  trying  to  obey  them. 
Let  us  now  specify  a  few  particulars. 

Jesus  teaches  us,  as  plain  as  language  can  express  it, 
improvidence,  lack  of  forethought,  lack  of  careful  provision 
for  the  future.  Again,  the  doctrine  of  charity  which  is  here 
inculcated  has  perhaps  wrought  more  evil  in  the  past  history 
of  the  world  than  much  of  the  hard-heartedness  and  cruelty 
of  the  rich.  I  am  perfectly  well  aware  that  men  attempt 
to  reinterpret  all  these  sayings  and  make  them  mean  what 
they  think  they  ought  to  mean ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
true  and  just  and  common-sense  canon  of  criticism  would 
lead  us  to  judge  these  sayings  of  Jesus  in  the  light  of  the 
thought  of  his  time,  not  in  the  light  of  the  thought  of  ours. 


1 68  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

So  judging  them,  we  are  to  take  them  literally.  We  are  to 
take  him  as  meaning  what  he  says.  He  says,  "Take  no 
thought  for  the  morrow."  I  know  that  they  translate  that, 
"  Be  not  anxious  about  the  morrow " ;  but,  even  if  I  grant 
so  much,  still  the  world  could  not  get  on  by  literally  obeying 
it.  The  world  must  be  anxious  about  the  morrow.  The 
world  must  take  thought.  The  world  must  provide  for  the 
future.  The  very  distinction  between  barbarism  and  civil- 
ization is  that  the  barbarian  obeys  this  principle,  and  the 
civilized  man  never  did,  does  not,  and  never  can.  One  of 
the  highest  marks  of  civilization  is  that  men  have  planned, 
forecast,  traced  the  present  working  causes  to  their  possible 
consequences,  and  provided  against  the  future.  We  cannot 
live  in  this  world  like  lilies  and  birds,  unless  we  are  trans- 
formed into  lilies  and  birds.  We  are  men,  factors  in  a  com- 
plex civilization,  and  the  principles  which  apply  to  these 
things  do  not  apply  to  us. 

Jesus  teaches  us  that,  if  we  trust  in  the  Father,  if  we  ask, 
we  shall  receive ;  that  we  are  to  care  only  for  the  kingdom 
of  heaven ;  that  we  are  to  make  no  provision  for  the  morrow. 
That  is  the  simple,  ingenuous  teaching  of  Jesus.  In  his 
doctrine  of  giving,  he  says :  "  Give  to  him  that  asketh  thee, 
and  from  him  that  would  borrow  of  thee  turn  not  thou 
away."  Lend,  asking  for  nothing  again,  expecting  nothing. 
That  is,  if  anybody  comes  and  asks  you  for  anything,  let 
him  have  it  without  any  regard  to  ever  receiving  it  again. 
That  is  the  simple  teaching ;  and  we  know  that  is  most  likely 
to  have  been  the  meaning  of  Jesus,  because  these  ideas  were 
all  in  the  air  at  the  time.  The  young  man  comes  to  him,  and 
asks,  "  What  shall  I  do  to  inherit  eternal  life } "  And  his 
reply  is,  "  Go,  sell  everything  thou  hast,  and  give  to  the 
poor."  If  a  man  should  obey  literally  that  direction  to-day, 
he  would  be  considered  a  public  enemy.     This  doctrine  of 


The  Morality  of  the  Bible.  169 

charity,  as  far  as  carried  out,  has  always  tended  to  create 
permanent  pauperism.  If  it  were  carried  out  in  all  its  liter- 
alness,  it  would  fill  the  world  with  irresponsible  lazzaroni. 
It  is  sometimes  said  that  these  teachings  were  intended  to 
be  only  local  and  temporary  in  their  application.  If  so,  it  is 
at  least  a  serious  defect  that  a  statement  of  that  fact  is  not 
plainly  made. 

Take  the  next  step,  the  teaching  of  Jesus  concerning 
poverty  and  riches  in  general,  which  is  very  near  akin  to  this. 
The  doctrine  of  the  New  Testament  all  the  way  through  is 
that  riches  are  evil.  "Blessed  are  the  poor."  "Woe  unto 
you  that  are  rich,  for  you  have  received  your  consolation." 
"Blessed  are  they  that  weep  now,  for  they  shall  laugh." 
"  Woe  unto  those  that  laugh,  for  they  shall  weep."  Take  the 
parable  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus.  It  is  ordinarily 
assumed  that  Lazarus  was  somehow  a  very  virtuous  man, 
and  that  Dives  was  a  bad  man.  Jesus  does  not  say  one 
single  word  about  Dives  being  a  bad  man.  There  is  not  a 
charge  brought  against  him,  except  that  he  was  rich.  He 
does  not  say  anything  about  Lazarus  being  a  good  man. 
There  is  no  praise  for  him,  except  that  he  was  poor.  When 
they  get  into  the  next  world.  Dives  is  not  told  that  he  is 
to  suffer  in  consequence  of  his  having  been  a  sinner; 
but  Abraham  says  to  him,  "  Remember,  in  your  lifetime,  you 
had  your  good  things,  and  Lazarus  evil  things :  now,  he  is 
comforted,  and  you  are  tormented."  Not  a  word  about  good 
or  bad.  Dives  is  simply  punished  to  make  things  even,  and 
Lazarus  rewarded  to  make  things  even.  All  the  way  through 
the  New  Testament,  there  is  a  very  apparent  antipathy  to 
wealth  ;  and  the  Catholic  Church  has  rightly  interpreted  it, 
in  making  voluntary  poverty  one  of  the  Christian  virtues. 
Yet  modern  civilization  has  developed  the  fact,  beyond  pos- 
sibility of  question,  that  wealth,  the  accumulated  resources 


170  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

of  the  world,  lies  at  the  very  base  and  is  the  prime  and 
essential  condition  of  all  civilization.  There  is  no  possi- 
bility of  man  being  civilized  until  there  is  a  little  saved 
beyond  what  is  needed  to  eat  up  or  wear  out  for  the  day. 
There  is  no  chance  for  schools,  for  music,  for  art,  for  educa- 
tion, no  chance  for  anything  beyond  taking  care  of  man  as 
an  animal,  until  there  is  some  wealth  saved  in  the  world. 
Lay  not  up  for  yourselves  riches  on  earth,  only  care  about 
riches  in  the  next  world,  says  the  New  Testament.  I  think 
it  is  a  very  good  idea  to  look  out  for  both ;  but  the  world 
would  come  to  a  stand-still,  and  civilization  would  be  under- 
mined and  a  failure,  if  those  precepts  were  literally  carried  out. 

Let  me  turn  to  another  ethical  principle,  touching  marriage 
and  divorce.  I  think  it  is  generally  taken  for  granted  that 
the  New  Testament  is  impervious  to  criticism  here,  if  no- 
where else ;  and  yet  it  seems  to  me  that  this  is  far  from  true. 
Jesus'  doctrine  of  divorce  is  one  that  no  Protestant  nation 
has  ever  dared  to  incorporate  into  law  or  carry  out  in  prac- 
tice. Yet  they  claim  to  be  Christian  in  their  methods  of 
legislation. 

Jesus  says  you  shall  put  away  your  wife  for  one  cause  and 
one  only ;  but,  mark  you,  he  does  not  make  any  provision 
for  the  wife  putting  away  her  husband  at  all !  The  New 
Testament  doctrine  of  divorce  is  entirely  one-sided.  The 
wife  is  not  permitted  to  put  away  her  husband  for  any  cause. 

Another  point.  Not  simply  in  the  teaching  of  the  Book 
of  Revelation  and  of  Paul,  but  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  him- 
self, marriage  does  not  occupy  the  highest  social  rank.  It 
is  a  little  under  a  cloud.  There  is  something  else  that  is 
better.  Jesus  himself  says  that,  if  a  man  is  able  to  receive 
it,  the  celibate  life  is  superior  to  the  married  one.  Paul's 
direction  about  marriage  is  that  it  is  better  to  marry  than  to 
do  worse.     In  the  Book  of  Revelation,  the  one  hundred  and 


The  Morality  of  the  Bible.  171 

forty-four  thousand  peculiar  saints  set  apart  from  all  the  rest, 
even  in  heaven,  who  have  the  highest  seats  and  to  whom 
special  honor  is  given,  are  those  who  have  lived  perfectly 
virginal  lives.  The  doctrine  is  that  the  celibate  has  superior 
sanctity.  It  puts  us  in  the  position  of  thinking  that  God 
has  made  us  what  we  are,  and  then  is  ready  to  teach  us  that, 
if  we  go  against  the  laws  of  the  natures  he  has  given  us, 
and  do  something  else,  we  shall  gain  his  favor  more  certainly 
than  as  though  we  carried  out  the  laws  that  he  himself  has 
made.  The  New  Testament  thus,  it  seems  to  me,  contains 
the  germs  of  all  European  monasticism  and  asceticism  and 
justifies  them,  and  therefore  is  no  guide  for  the  practical 
morality  of  the  world  to-day  in  these  respects. 

There  is  another  point.  Let  us  take  the  teaching  of  the 
New  Testament  concerning  resistance  to  evil ;  the  doctrine 
concerning  the  citizen's  relation  to  government.  What  is 
it?  "Resist  not  evil."  The  Quaker  is  the  only  man  that 
attempts  to  carry  out  the  doctrine  of  the  New  Testament  in 
this  direction ;  and,  if  all  the  world  were  Quakers,  we  might 
possibly  get  along  with  it,  though  I  question  whether,  even 
then,  it  would  not  be  a  pretty  tame,  poor  kind  of  a  world. 
Through  resistance  to  injur}',  resistance  to  tyrants,  fighting 
for  liberty,  fighting  for  right,  has  the  civilization  of  the  world 
grown.  Paul  says :  "  He  that  resisteth  the  power  resisteth  the 
ordinance  of  God."  "  The  powers  that  be  are  ordained  of 
God."  That  is  substantially  the  New  Testament  doctrine. 
The  powers  that  be  are  manifestations  of  the  will  of  God, 
and  resistance  to  tyranny  and  injury  of  any  kind  is  un- 
christian. Yet  look  back  down  the  pathway  of  the  ages  up 
which  our  ancestors  have  trod,  leading  to  the  grand  ideas 
of  freedom  and  civilization  which  we  hold  to-day.  See  the 
barons  at  Runnymede  demanding  from  King  John  the  con- 
cessions of  the  Mama  Charta.     The  influence  of  the  New 


172  Beliefs  about  the  Bible, 

Testament  would  have  been  on  the  side  of  the  weak-minded, 
vacillating,  unscrupulous,  tyrannous  John.  Come  down  to 
the  period  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  see  Cromwell  with  his 
Roundheads  fighting  against  King  Charles.  The  old  Eng- 
lish Church  was  only  logical  when,  after  the  death  of  the 
king  and  the  restoration,  at  the  end  of  Cromwell's  rule,  it 
inserted  a  special  passage  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer 
in  memory  of  the  blessed  saint  and  martyr  King  Charles. 
The  Puritans,  according  to  the  New  Testament  ethics,  were 
wrong  in  resisting  the  divine  right  and  authority  of  the  king. 
We  were  wrong  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution.  The  French 
were  wrong  when  they  threw  off  the  mountainous  tyranny 
of  ages,  and  stood  up  at  last  free  men.  Do  you  know  the 
world  has  come  to  the  vantage-ground  of  civilization  by  not 
being  literally  obedient  to  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount?  Men 
have  reasoned,  out  of  their  own  experience,  laws  of  right 
and  truth  which  have  been  spoken  of  God  through  the 
mouthpiece  of  the  events  of  the  time ;  and  these  have  super- 
seded any  teachings  that  preceded  them. 

I  must  touch  one  other  point.  The  dominant  teaching  of 
the  New  Testament  was  other-worldly.  It  cast  slight  and 
contempt  on  this  life,  the  flesh,  and  everything  concerning 
it.  Of  course,  then,  there  was  no  place  in  it  for  anything 
like  that  spirit  of  truth,  that  spirit  of  investigation  into 
natural  phenomena  and  forces,  such  as  have  come  to  grand 
embodiment  in  the  modern  science  of  the  world.  The 
teaching  of  the  New  Testament  is  that  faith  is  one  of  the 
highest  virtues.  When  Jesus  reappeared  to  his  disciples, 
Thomas  did  what  any  one  would  do  to-day :  he  asked  proof 
of  a  stupendous  miracle.  And  —  though  Jesus  forgives  him, 
forgives  him  for  a  virtue  —  he  is  represented  as  saying  to 
him,  "Blessed  are  they  that  have  not  seen,  and  yet  have 
believed."     Blessed    are    those   who   shut   their  eyes,   and 


The  Morality  of  the  Bible.  173 

accept  that  which  is  given  them  as  truth.  We  want  no  such 
blessing  in  the  modern  world.  The  experience  of  the  civ- 
ilized world  is  crowning  doubt  among  the  virtues,  placing  it 
as  high  as  faith.  It  is  just  as  much  a  duty  to  doubt  a  thing 
that  is  not  true  or  proved  as  to  believe  a  thing  that  is 
proved.  This  spirit,  then,  of  modern  investigation,  of  de- 
manding credentials  of  that  which  claims  to  be  truth,  of 
investigating  nature,  her  laws  and  forces,  recognizing  the 
fact  that  it  is  by  knowing  what  these  are  and  getting  into 
right  relations  with  them  that  the  noblest  civilization  of  the 
world  is  built  up, —  this  whole  scale  of  virtues,  so  to  speak, 
on  which  so  large  a  part  of  the  best  things  in  the  world 
depend,  are  not  New  Testament  virtues  at  all.  This  is  some- 
thing that  the  modern  world  has  developed  since  that  day, 
something  that  could  not  have  been  known  then  because 
the  world  had  not  then  attained  its  majority,  and  was  not 
free  to  look  over  the  universe  for  itself. 

The  New  Testament,  then,  does  not  contain,  it  seems  to 
me,  a  final,  perfectly  developed  system  of  ethical  teaching. 
I  wish  not  to  criticise  it  or  to  find  fault  with  it.  I  have  not 
a  word  of  fault  to  find  with  it,  judged  by  the  standard  of  the 
age  and  time.  Do  not  understand  me  as  attempting  to  pick 
flaws  in  the  character  and  teachings  of  Jesus.  I  only  say 
that  the  first  century  is  not  the  nineteenth ;  that  God  is  alive, 
and  has  been  alive  for  nineteen  hundred  years ;  and,  if  the 
world  has  made  any  progress,  it  is  perfectly  natural  that  we 
should  be  in  advance  of  the  people  who  lived  nearly  two 
thousand  years  ago.  That  is  infidelity,  that  is  lack  of  faith 
in  God,  that  takes  the  ground  that  the  world  is  not  making 
any  progress ;  that  in  two  thousand  years  we  have  done 
nothing  and  come  to  nothing,  but  have  been  simply  running 
around  in  a  little  circle,  ending  where  we  began.  I  believe 
in   the   theory  of  the   divine   Life  and  its  relation  to  this 


174  Beliefs   about  the  Bible, 

world  that  teaches  us  that  God  is  perpetually  before  us  as 
Leader ;  that  the  new  experiences  which  he  gives  us  in  each 
generation  of  time  give  new  conceptions  of  right  and  wrong, 
higher  views  of  God  and  man  and  duty,  something  nobler 
and  better  than  the  world  has  ever  seen  until  to-day. 

Were  it  in  the  line  of  my  theme,  and  had  I  time,  I  should 
love  to  dwell  upon  the  other  side,  to  point  out  what  I  regard 
as  original,  grand,  and  permanent  in  the  ethics  of  Jesus. 
But  I  have  had  another  object  this  morning, —  that  of  test- 
ing the  perfection  of  the  New  Testament  teachings.  And  I 
ask  that  what  I  have  said  may  be  judged  in  the  light  of 
that  purpose. 


The  Present  Use  and  Worth  of  the  Bible. 


No  ONE  who  is  familiar  with  the  results  of  modern  criti- 
cism, scientific  investigation,  and  historic  research,  can  pos- 
sibly hereafter  hold  the  same  theory  concerning  the  Bible 
which  has  so  long  dominated  the  brain  and  the  conscience 
of  the  world.  The  Bible  has  come  down,  in  one  sense,  from 
that  lofty  pedestal  of  power  and  unique  supremacy  on  which 
it  has  stood ;  and  it  must  henceforth  take  its  place,  to  be 
judged  by  the  same  rules  of  criticism,  along  with  all  the 
other  sacred  literatures  of  the  world.  That  is  not  by  any 
means  saying  that  the  other  sacred  literatures  of  the  world 
are  as  good  as  the  Bible.  When  I  say  that  one  of  the  Cali- 
fornia big  trees  is  to  be  studied  in  precisely  the  same  way 
as  an  ordinary  pine-tree  or  wayside  shrub,  that  it  is  just  as 
natural  as  they,  that  it  has  developed  according  to  precisely 
the  same  methods,  and  is  to  be  studied  after  the  same  prin- 
ciples of  botany  and  of  vegetable  growth,  I  do  not  say  that 
the  California  tree  is  no  higher,  no  grander,  no  more  won- 
drous than  the  wayside  shrub.  The  Bible  takes  its  place 
alongside  all  the  other  literatures  of  the  world  j  and  it  will 
demonstrate  its  fitness  to  stand  above  them,  overlooking 
them,  grander,  higher  than  they,  provided  it  is  fitted  to 
occupy  this  position.  And  this  certainly  is  all  that  any  be- 
liever in  it  can  rationally  desire.  The  Bible  can  no  longer 
be  regarded  as  an  infallible  inspiration  concerning  religious 


iy6  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

truth.  It  can  no  longer  be  regarded  as  an  ultimate  standard 
of  judgment  concerning  ethics.  It  is  no  longer  scientific  au- 
thority. It  is  no  longer  unimpeachable  as  an  historic  record 
of  a  people  whose  life  it  details  through  the  course  of  so 
many  changing  centuries. 

What  then  ?  Are  we  reduced  to  the  alternative  that  has 
been  so  many  times  held  up  for  us, —  the  whole  Bible  ac- 
cording to  the  old  ideas  of  it,  or  nothing  ?  Are  we  to  wor- 
ship the  Bible,  or  else  fling  it  to  the  rubbish-heap  ?  Must  we 
read  it  as  infallible  all  the  way  through,  from  cover  to  cover, 
or  else  never  read  it  at  all  ?  Is  it  treating  it  as  God's  word  in 
every  sentence,  phrase,  and  letter,  or  else  as  no  longer  worth 
the  attention  of  rational  men  t  I  am  perfectly  well  aware, 
as  are  you,  that  this  alternative  is  very  commonly  pointed 
out  to  us,  and  we  are  expected  to  choose  the  one  or  the 
other.  For  my  part,  I  decline  to  be  thrust  through  by  either 
horn  of  such  an  unreasonable  dilemma. 

There  are  two  main  questions  that  I  want  to  ask  you  to 
consider  with  me  this  morning.  Has  this  change  which  has 
come  over  the  position  and  estimate  of  the  Bible  been  pro- 
ductive of  loss  or  gain  to  the  modern  world .?  This  is  the 
first  question.  That  is,  are  we  richer  or  poorer  than  we 
were  as  the  result  of  criticism  concerning  the  Bible } 

The  next  question  is.  Of  what  use  and  value  is  this  Bible 
to  the  man  who  looks  upon  it  simply  as  human  literature, 
developed  according  to  the  laws  of  the  other  literatures  of 
the  world  t 

I.  Take  these  two  questions  in  their  order.  We  are  per- 
petually told  that,  if  we  give  up  the  Bible, —  and  by  giving 
up  the  Bible  is  meant  giving  up  a  particular  theory  about  it 
and  a  particular  use  of  it, —  we  have  lost  all  hope,  all  ground- 
work for  religion,  all  basis  for  ethics,  all  reason  for  belief 
and  trust  in  God,  all  ground  for  hope  in  a  future  life.     The 


Present  Use  and  Worth,  177 

warning  cry  is  constantly  rung  in  our  ears  that  it  must  be  the 
old  theory  of  the  Bible  in  its  entirety,  or  else  blank  religious 
and  moral  darkness,  "without  God  and  without  hope  in  the 
world."  So  far  from  accepting  this,  I  am  one  of  those  who 
believe  that  the  modern  conception  of  the  Bible  is  a  distinct 
and  definite  gain  to  the  world ;  and  I  propose  to  show  you 
why  I  think  so  in  two  or  three  simple  particulars. 

In  the  first  place,  he  who  holds  this  modern  conception 
of  the  book  is  relieved  from  the  burden  that  the  intellect 
and  the  conscience  of  the  enlightened  modern  world  is  find- 
ing too  heavy  to  bear.  We  are  no  longer  under  obligations 
to  defend  that  which  is  intellectually  indefensible.  We  are 
no  longer  under  obligation  to  apologize  for  that  which 
certainly  needs  apology,  if  the  rational  intellect  of  the  world 
is  to  be  trusted. 

Let  me  point  out  just  what  I  mean  in  one  or  two  directions. 
He  who  holds  to  the  infallibility  of  the  Bible  and  holds  his 
conception  of  religion  in  that  kind  of  framework  is  perpetu- 
ally challenged  in  this  direction  or  that.  If  he  goes  to  a 
man  and  says,  "  I  want  you  to  accept  my  religion,  to  become 
religious  according  to  my  ideas,"  the  man  to  whom  he  speaks 
will  be  certain  to  say,  if  he  be  one  who  has  doubted  the 
infallibility  of  the  Bible,  "  Must  I  believe  the  Biblical  account 
of  the  creation  of  the  world,  which  has  been  demonstrated 
to  be  false  ?  "  What  answer  can  the  old  type  of  Bible  apolo- 
gist make  to  a  challenge  of  this  sort  ?  No  answer,  except  to 
say :  "  You  must  forego  the  use  of  your  intellect ;  you  must 
give  up  the  result  of  modern  knowledge  ;  you  must  shut  your 
eyes,  and  accept  that  which  the  best  knowledge  of  the  world 
declares  to  be  untrue.  You  must  do  this,  or  you  cannot  be  a 
lover  and  follower  of  God.  You  cannot  be,  in  the  highest 
and  truest  sense  of  the  word,  *  religious.' "  In  other  words, 
the  man  occup)ring  the  old  traditional  stand-point  must  forego 


178  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

intellect,  knowledge,  and  brain  ;  distrust  them  ;  leave  them 
one  side,  wondering  why  God  ever  gave  them  to  man.  That 
is  only  one  illustration. 

Again,  the  doubter  who  would  be  religious,  and  who  would 
also  like  to  keep  his  brains,  if  he  may,  beginning  with  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis,  will  run  all  the  way  through,  and 
will  say :  "  What  about  the  incredible  story  of  the  exodus  of 
the  Israelites  from  Egypt,  intellectually  incredible,  morally 
indefensible  ?  What  about  the  conquest  of  Canaan ;  the 
shaking  down  of  city  walls  at  the  sound  of  a  ram's  horn 
blown  by  the  people ;  the  staying  of  the  sun  in  the  heavens 
until  the  end  of  a  battle  can  be  reached?  What  about 
human  sacrifice  ?  What  about  the  cruelty  and  immorality 
of  a  man  like  David,  still  said  to  be  a  man  after  God's  own 
heart  ?  What  about  the  genealogies  of  the  New  Testament  ? 
What  about  its  stupendous  miracles  that  no  one  can  explain  ? 
What  about  the  prophecies  of  the  immediate  coming  of  the 
kingdom  from  the  Master's  own  lips,  and  as  yet  unfulfilled?'* 
I  speak  of  these  things  to  indicate  the  kind  of  intellectual 
and  moral  burden,  the  load,  that  rests  upon  a  man  who 
attaches  his  religion  to  the  old  conception  of  the  Bible,  who 
must  defend  all  these  things ;  for  they  cannot  be  defended 
in  the  court  of  reason.  He  must  either  do  this,  or  he  must 
forego  the  use  of  his  intellect,  shut  his  eyes,  and  accept 
whatever  is  given.  He  must  torture  and  twist  texts  out  of 
their  natural  meaning,  until  there  is  wrought  into  the  very 
fibre  of  his  intellectual  and  moral  nature  the  warp  and  woof 
of  uncertainty,  of  deception,  of  unreality,  and  he  questions 
whether  words  in  their  connections  anywhere  mean  really 
what  they  say,  getting  into  a  state  of  mind  like  that  of  the 
clergyman  who  said  to  me  the  other  day,  "If  my  people 
understood  what  I  say  as  I  understand  it,  they  would  not 
listen  to  me  for  a  week."     I  think  it  is  a  grand  gain  to  be 


Present  Use  and   Worth.  i^g 

able  to  throw  off  this  burden,  which  neither  the  past  nor  the 
present  has  been  able  to  bear,  and  to  accept  that  which  is 
true  because  it  is  true,  feeling  under  no  obligation  to  shut 
one's  eyes  or  to  stop  one's  thinking. 

Akin  to  this  is  another  point,  in  some  respects  sufficiently 
important  to  make  it  worthy  of  separate  mention.  The 
world  is  set  intellectually  free  by  this  modern  conception 
of  the  Bible.  He  who  holds  the  old  ideas  may  claim  to  be 
intellectually  free;  but  it  is  only  the  claim  of  a  man  who, 
shut  within  certain  definite  but  very  narrow  limits,  proclaims 
that  he  is  perfectly  free,  because  he  does  not  choose  to  step 
outside  of  those  limits.  But,  if  the  time  ever  comes  when 
he  wishes  to  step  outside,  then  the  bondage  becomes  irksome 
and  unbearable.  I  remember  my  own  experience,  when  I 
was  studying  theology  in  the  seminary.  I  was  told  to  study 
with  perfect  freedom,  to  make  excursions  through  the  uni- 
verse wherever  I  would,  through  science,  philosophy,  criti- 
cism, history ;  but  I  knew  all  the  while  that  there  was  a  law, 
unuttered,  which  made  it  perfectly  certain  that  if,  after  my 
excursions,  I  did  not  come  back  and  settle  down  within  these 
definite  narrow  limits,  I  was  banned,  excluded  from  the 
fellowship  of  those  with  whom  I  had  been  friends,  whom  I 
had  learned  to  love,  and  who,  as  I  believed,  and  as  I  was 
taught  to  believe,  possessed  the  final  and  ultimate  truth  of 
God.  I  say  it  is  a  grand  gain  to  set  the  human  intellect  free 
in  this  regard. 

According  to  the  old  ideas,  when  Copernicus  began  to 
study  the  nature  of  this  universe,  he  was  trespassing  on 
dangerous  ground ;  for  the  minute  that  he  found  out  that  it 
did  not  accord  with  the  Biblical  story,  that  moment  he  was 
infidel  and  outcast.  His  system  of  demonstrated  truth  was 
opposed  by  all  those  who  claimed  officially  to  represent  God 
on  earth.     When  Magellan,  starting  on  his  voyage  of  di&- 


l8o  Beliefs   about   the   Bible. 

covery  around  the  world,  declared  that  he  believed  the  earth 
was  round,  because  he  noticed  that  its  shadow  cast  on  the 
face  of  the  moon  during  an  eclipse  had  a  circular  outline,  he 
was  taking  his  stand  on  the  reality  of  the  universe  that  God 
had  made ;  but  he  was  a  rebel  against  God's  church,  God's 
book,  God's  infallible,  revealed  truth,  according  to  all  the 
standards  of  the  time.  He  was  not  free,  except  by  making 
himself  outcast  and  infidel.  And  so,  when  Darwin,  tracing 
through  long  years  the  problem  as  to  the  origin  and  nature 
of  man,  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Eden  story  is  not 
true,  what  must  he  do  ?  He  must  either  assert  the  liberty  of 
thought,  and  dare  to  look  God's  universe  in  the  face,  and 
ask  it  questions,  and  listen  to  receive  its  answer,  or  he  must 
shut  his  eyes  to  what  he  knew  was  the  truth,  and  bend  his 
intellectual  hands  and  feet  to  the  wearing  of  spiritual  chains. 
There  is  no  freedom,  there  can  be  no  freedom,  of  intellect  in 
the  face  of  a  system  that  claims  to  be  absolutely  infallible, 
unquestionably  true. 

It  is,  then,  a  grand  gain  to  set  the  mind  of  the  world  free. 
For  note  you  this :  if  the  teaching  of  this  claimed  infallible 
system  be  true,  then  God's  universe  must  be  in  accord  with 
it ;  and  ultimate  search,  deepest  investigation,  can  only  con- 
firm it.  Why,  then,  any  need  of  the  claimed  infallibility.^ 
Here,  then,  is  another  distinct  and  definite  and  grand  gain. 

There  is  one  more  that  I  must  mention,  which  is  even 
more  magnificent,  if  possible,  than  either  of  these,  because  it 
touches  the  heart,  the  life,  the  hope,  of  man. 

Let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  the  outlook  over  this  world, 
this  changing  scene  of  human  history.  One  who  occupies 
the  old  stand-point,  what  must  he  believe  "i  He  must  believe 
that  the  silent  God  sat  in  the  heavens  uttering  never  a  word 
or  a  warning  for  thousands  of  years ;  that  at  the  last  he 
selects  one  family,  leaving  all  the  rest  of  the  world  to  wander 


Present  Use  and  Worth.  i8l 

and  perish.  He  selects  one  little  family,  and  reveals  to  the 
founder  of  this  family  a  hint  of  something  to  come  in  a  far- 
off  time.  Then,  ages  go  by.  This  little  family  grows ;  but 
its  light  extends  nowhere  beyond  its  own  limits.  Age  after 
age  goes  by,  and  the  great  outlying  thousands  and  millions  of 
the  world  are  still  perishing,  and  no  word  of  warning  is 
uttered,  no  hand  reached  out  to  lift  them  up  or  help.  By 
and  by  there  comes  another  who  claims,  or  on  whose  behalf 
the  claim  is  made,  that  he  is  the  very  God  of  the  universe, 
himself  come  down  to  earth  in  the  form  of  a  man  who  lives 
and  dies.  His  church  is  founded,  and  Christian  history 
begins.  Eighteen  hundred  years,  and  almost  another  cen- 
tury, have  gone  by,  and  not  a  third  of  the  wide  world  yet  has 
heard  the  message  that  God  has  spoken,  or  has  felt  the 
touch  of  his  hand  thrilling  with  love  and  help.  On  this 
theory,  it  seems  to  me  that  God's  dealing  with  this  world,  if 
he  was  in  earnest,  and  if  he  meant  to  save  it,  is  the  most 
stupendous  failure  that  human  history  has  to  record.  But, 
on  this  other  theory,  what  1 

We  are  able  to  believe  that  this  book  is  one  among  other 
books  j  our  religion  one  among  other  religions, —  all  of  them 
equally  natural,  equally  divine  except  in  degree ;  that,  in 
every  case,  all  these  people  were  God's  children,  and  that,  in 
what  little  light  they  had,  they  were  following  after  God,  if 
haply  they  might  find  him ;  that,  with  stammering  lip  or  not 
fully  uttered  expression,  they  were  giving  vent  to  their 
thoughts,  their  hopes,  their  feelings,  their  fears,  reaching  out 
and  up  after  the  divine  j  that  God's  light  has  flooded  the 
earth  from  the  beginning,  shining  into  the  brains  and  the 
hearts  of  men,  just  as  fast  and  as  far  as  those  hearts  and 
those  brains  were  capable  of  receiving  it;  that  all  men 
thus  are  God's  children,  and  that  all  of  them  have  been 
guided  and  led, —  never  for  a  moment  forsaken,  never  for  a 


1 82  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

moment  forgotten ;  each  one  in  his  own  dialect  uttering  his 
hopes  and  aspirations,  and  reaching  out  and  finding  God. 
We  are  able  to  believe,  on  this  theory,  that  Pope  was  right 
when  he  wrote  his  grand  universal  prayer :  — 

"  Father  of  all  1  in  every  age, 
In  every  clime  adored, 
By  saint,  by  savage,  and  by  sage, 
Jehovah,  Jove,  or  Lord  1  .  .  . 

"  To  Thee,  \rhose  temple  is  all  space, 
Whose  altar,  earth,  sea,  skies, 
One  chorus  let  all  beings  raise. 
All  nature's  incense  rise  I  " 

We  are  able  to  believe,  for  the  first  time  in  human  history, 
that,  when  we  utter  the  words,  "Our  Father,  who  art  in 
heaven,"  they  have  a  world-wide,  universal,  all-humanity- 
embracing  meaning.  They  are  a  mockery  on  the  other 
theory.  For,  if  that  be  true,  God  has  chosen,  as  his  children, 
a  few,  no  better  than  the  rest,  judged  by  human  stand- 
ards, and  has  left  the  others,  like  sheep  without  a  shepherd, 
to  wander  in  the  wilderness  and  be  devoured  by  wild  beasts 
at  their  will.  These  seem  to  me  some  grand  reasons  why  we 
may  count  the  modern  change  of  theory  concerning  the 
Bible  a  great  gain  instead  of  a  loss. 

II.  But  it  is  time  for  me  to  turn  to  my  second  question, 
and  indicate  to  you  three  or  four  of  the  uses  which  the  Bible 
may  well  have  for  us  who  have  given  up  the  old  theories 
concerning  it.  In  the  first  place,  curiously  enough,  it  seems 
to  be  imagined  by  those  who  have  held  to  the  old  ideas  that 
a  religious  truth  ceases  to  be  truth  at  all,  unless  it  is  backed 
up  by  an  infallible  inspiration.  How  do  we  find  out  what 
is  truth  t  We  find  it  out  by  experience,  do  we  not  t  If  it 
were  infallibly  revealed  to  men  that  corn  is  wholesome  to 


Present  Use  a?id  Worth.  183 

eat,  would  it  add  anything  to  the  fact  discovered  by  human 
experience?  Suppose  it  were  recorded  in  a  claimed  infal- 
lible inspiration  that  corn  was  poison,  experience  would 
demonstrate  that  it  was  not.  In  either  case,  the  revelation 
would  be  worth  nothing  concerning  such  a  thing.  Any 
revelation  concerning  the  practical  welfare  of  men  would 
mean  nothing  to  us,  until  we  had  lived  it  out  by  practical 
experience.  We  find  out  what  is  wholesome  by  testing 
it:  we  find  out  poison  by  testing  that.  We  find  out  all 
the  facts  of  human  life  in  the  same  way.  The  methods  by 
which  conduct  ought  to  be  ordered  in  the  relations  of  man 
with  man, —  social,  political,  commercial  truths, —  these  are 
discovered  by  experience.  Those  who  reject  these  truths 
ultimately  go  to  the  wall,  crushed  by  them,  because  they  are 
a  part  of  the  eternal  ongoing  of  the  resistless  universe  that 
has  God's  omnipotence  at  its  heart.  The  truth,  then,  that 
the  Bible  contains  remains  true  on  any  theory,  and  it  will 
always  be  valuable  as  a  part  of  the  food  and  as  part  of  the 
mental  and  moral  stimulus  and  inspiration  of  man.     For 

"  Not  all  the  critics  can  crush  with  their  ban 
One  word  that  is  true  to  the  nature  of  man." 

In  the  next  place,  for  many  centuries  yet,  I  know  not  how 
long,  the  Bible  is  going  to  have  a  grand  advantage  over  all 
the  other  books  of  the  world  by  reason  of  the  sacred  memo- 
ries, the  splendid  associations  that  have  clustered  about  it 
in  the  past,  and  will  cluster  about  it  for  ages  yet  to  come. 
What  do  I  mean  by  this  ?  Do  you  not  know,  as  you  look 
over  the  past  of  your  own  lives,  that  many  and  many  a  time 
a  truth  has  been  uttered  in  your  ears  that  on  some  other 
occasion,  in  the  midst  of  other  circumstances,  would  seem  to 
you  commonplace  enough,  a  simple  truth,  abstract  as  a 
statement  of  a  principle  in  algebra,  perhaps,  so  far  as  it  is 


I  §4  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

conceraed,  one  that  you  may  have  heard  before  and  may 
have  heard  many  times  since ;  and  yet,  in  your  experience, 
it  is  set  quite  apart,  surrounded  by  a  halo  of  sacred  light, 
having  a  meaning  that  it  could  not  have  had  but  for  the  fact 
that  it  is  linked  in  your  memory  with  some  of  the  sacred 
associations  of  the  past,  with  some  epoch  hour  of  your  life? 
It  was  the  word,  perhaps,  that  mother  spoke  to  you  when 
you  were  a  little  boy  at  her  knee ;  the  word  that  father 
uttered  when  you  left  home  for  the  last  time  ;  the  word  that 
some  brother  or  sister  may  have  spoken  on  their  sick-bed, 
just  before  they  faded  away  into  the  silence, —  some  word  that 
comes  to  you  with  a  power  beyond  itself,  linked  with  mem- 
ory, with  experience,  and  that  has  for  you  all  the  added 
weight  of  this  sacred  association.  Now,  the  Bible,  as  no 
other  book,  has  this  hold  in  our  sympathies  and  on  our 
hearts.  The  Bible  to  most  of  us,  whatever  our  creed  may 
be,  is  bound  up  with  the  memories  of  childhood  and  mother 
and  home.  Some  words  from  the  Bible  are  connected  with 
them,  or  with  that  hour  which  we  do  not  remember,  but  of 
which  we  have  been  told,  when  we  were  consecrated  by  the 
noble  and  well-intended  aspirations  of  our  parents.  Some 
words  from  the  Bible  are  linked  with  the  marriage  service, 
that  has  changed  for  better  or  worse  the  whole  after  years 
of  our  life.  Some  words  from  the  Bible  are  linked  with 
those  last  sad  funeral  hours  in  which  we  have  laid  away 
those  that  we  learned  for  so  many  years  to  love.  The  Bible 
Is  bound  up  as  is  no  other  book  with  the  sacred  and  tender 
associations  of  our  past. 

Then,  again,  on  a  larger  than  a  merely  personal  scale,  what 
other  book  is  there  that  is  so  woven  into  that  province  of  the 
world's  civilization  to  which  we  belong?  We  cannot  read 
of  any  of  the  great  epochs  of  English  achievement,  of  Amer- 
ican advancement,  without  seeing  that  some  words  from  the 


Present  Use  and   Worth.  185 

Bible  played  their  part  in  the  victory  or  the  defeat.  No  one 
can  read  of  Cromwell,  of  the  Puritans,  of  the  development 
of  liberty  in  England,  without  seeing  that  the  Bible  was 
there,  some  of  its  grand  words  being  the  mainspring  and 
inspiration  of  some  of  the  noblest  of  all  those  movements. 

Then,  the  Bible  is  associated  with  much  of  the  grandest 
art  of  the  world,  with  its  music,  with  all  that  is  noblest  and 
finest  in  our  civilization.  Whatever  theory  we  hold  of  it, 
that  makes  no  difference.  These  are  the  facts.  It  is  pos- 
sible, in  a  sense  in  which  it  is  true  and  can  be  true  of  no 
other  book,  that  this  is  the  book  of  Christendom ;  and  it  ^ 
will  always  occupy  a  unique  position  and  have  a  unique 
and  grand  influence, —  all  the  grander  influence  because  we 
will  be  able  to  sift  out  the  gold,  weaving  it  into  beautiful 
ornaments  and  implements  of  noble  use,  leaving  the  ddbris 
and  the  worthless  material  to  find  its  own  place. 

There  is  another  point  that  seems  to  me  of  a  good  deal 
of  importance.  You  will  notice,  as  I  conduct  these  services 
from  Sunday  to  Sunday,  that  there  are  large  parts  of  the 
Bible  that  I  do  not  read.  I  select  chapters  or  parts  of 
chapters  from  both  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New,  but  I 
cannot  read  it  indiscriminately.  Large  parts  of  it  I  pass  by. 
For  what  reason?  Simply  because  I  wish  to  be  perfectly 
frank  and  open  as  to  what  I  believe,  and  because  I  do  not 
choose  to  spend  half  my  morning,  after  I  have  read  a 
passage,  in  telling  you  that  I  do  not  believe  it  literally,  and 
in  explaining  to  you  in  what  sense  I  do  take  it.  The  time 
will  come,  when  we  have  passed  through  this  transition  hour, 
when  the  results  of  the  criticism  of  the  Bible  have  been 
settled,  when  the  thoughts  of  men  have  found  their  place, — 
the  time  will  come,  I  say,  when  I  shall  be  able  to  read  any 
part  of  this  Bible  from  the  pulpit,  and  not  be  misunderstood. 
I  shall  not  be  understood  to  believe  a  miracle,  because  I  read 


1 86  Beliefs   about  the   Bible. 

the  account  of  it.  I  shall  not  be  understood  to  accept  as 
history  an  Old  Testament  legend,  because  I  read  it  as  a 
lesson.  I  can  read  from  any  other  part  of  the  literature  of 
the  world,  and  people  understand  me.  I  can  draw  out  the 
lessons,  beautiful  and  rich  with  human  associations,  from 
any  legendary  lore  of  the  world,  outside  of  the  Bible,  and 
never  be  misunderstood.  The  time  will  come  when  I  can 
use  the  Bible  in  the  same  way ;  and,  when  I  can,  I  shall  find, 
and  you  will  find,  that  there  is  no  book  in  the  world  so  rich 
in  human  instruction  as  is  this  book.  Legend,  allegory, 
miracle,  parable, — all  wrought  and  woven  through  and^through 
with  the  texture  and  color  of  human  experience, —  I  shall  be 
able  to  use  them  with  a  force  that  pertains  to  no  abstract 
truth.  It  requires  a  high  order  of  intellect  to  deal  with 
abstract  truth,  pure  and  colorless.  To  illustrate  in  a  concrete 
way  what  I  mean :  I  remember  that  Mr.  Collyer  was  one 
day  telling  me  that  he  repeated  a  certain  sermon  to  his 
people ;  and,  as  he  was  coming  out,  one  of  them  said,  "  I 
remember  perfectly  well  that  you  have  preached  that  sermon 
before."  Mr.  Collyer  replied,  "  I  have  no  doubt  of  it ;  but, 
if  I  had  only  happened  to  think  to  leave  out  the  story  of  the 
little  dog,  you  never  would  have  remembered  it  in  the  world." 
This  carries  the  principle  that  illustration  or  a  story,  some- 
thing concrete,  something  that  touches  human  life,  something 
that  has  the  flavor  of  human  experience  about  it,  fixes  itself 
in  the  memory.  It  is  carried  where  abstract  truth  is  lost  and 
forgotten. 

By  and  by,  the  time  will  come  when  I  shall  be  able  to  read 
you  the  story  of  the  cruse  of  oil  that  was  an  inexhaustible 
fountain  from  which  the  widow  could  pour  and  pour  without 
refilling  it,  and  I  shall  be  able  out  of  that  to  deduce  grand 
lessons  that  are  ideally  true,  whatever  may  be  said  concern- 
ing the  outer  shell  that  encloses  them.     The  miracle  of  turn- 


Present  Use  and   Worth.  187 

ing  the  water  into  wine  at  Cana  of  Galilee, —  do  you  not  see 
how  at  the  heart  of  it  there  is  a  great  universal  human  truth  ? 
Are  there  not  experiences  in  the  lives  of  us  all,  when  the 
presence  of  some  superior  man  or  woman,  the  word  of  some 
superior  wisdom,  touches  the  commonplace  of  our  lives,  and 
transmutes  them  into  gold?  The  story  of  the  transfigura- 
tion,—  do  we  not  all  climb  up  on  heights  of  mountain  out- 
look where  our  faces  are  transfigured,  where  they  shine  with 
a  light  they  never  knew  before,  and  where  we  enter  into 
communion,  as  did  the  disciples  with  Moses  and  Elias,  with 
the  great,  the  heroic  of  all  the  past,  and  where  we  enter  into 
a  new  range  of  experience,  something  higher  than  we  should 
be  able  to  maintain  as  the  ordinary  level  of  life  ?  These  just 
as  hints  of  what  a  storehouse  of  wealth  for  human  lessons 
this  old  Bible  will  be,  when  we  are  able  to  read  it  with 
untrammelled  intellect,  and  without  stopping  to  think  of 
critical  questions  of  truth  and  untruth. 

One  thing  more.  The  Bible  must  forever  have  one  use 
and  meaning  that  is  true  concerning  it  in  a  sense  that  is  true 
of  no  other  book.  As  far  as  my  acquaintance  with  sacred 
literature  extends,  the  Bible  contains  the  most  complete  and 
finished  religious  biography  in  the  world.  That  is,  it  traces, 
from  the  very  earliest  forms  of  the  religious  life,  the  origin, 
the  birth,  the  growth,  the  development,  the  mistakes,  the 
faults,  the  failures,  the  decline  and  fall  of  a  great  race  relig- 
ion.    What  is  the  use  of  that  ? 

Let  me  illustrate  a  moment,  to  make  it  clear  to  you.  A 
physician,  if  he  wishes  to  know  how  to  treat  a  well  man  to 
keep  him  well,  or  a  sick  man  in  order  to  cure  his  disease, 
must  know,  as  far  as  possible,  all  that  pertains  to  the  birth, 
the  growth,  the  disease,  the  health,  the  decay,  and  the  death 
of  a  man ;  and  so  he  starts  with  the  little  primal  germ,  and 
traces  the  physical   life   of   man  all  the  way  through,  and 


1 88  Beliefs  about   the   Bible. 

this  becomes  to  him  a  perpetual  lesson,  a  storehouse  of 
knowledge,  a  guide  in  the  practical  experience  of  his  every- 
day life.  We  read  the  biography  of  a  man ;  and,  if  we  are 
wise,  we  extract  from  it  lessons  as  to  how  to  live.  If  the 
man  has  been  faulty,  if  he  has  made  mistakes,  if  he  has 
wandered  this  way  or  that,  all  the  better  for  us,  as  far 
as  the  instructiveness  of  that  biography  is  concerned.  If 
we  are  dealing  with  a  chart  that  shows  us  the  navigation 
of  a  dangerous  coast,  we  do  not  want  simply  to  know  that 
here  is  an  open  channel :  we  want  signals  to  indicate  the 
places  where  wrecks  have  gone  down.  And  so  again,  in 
regard  to  the  religious  books  and  biographies  of  the  world, 
we  need  to  know  the  mistakes,  the  faults,  the  wanderings, 
all  that  pertains  to  the  religious  experience  of  the  race.  We 
want  to  know  it  as  a  part  of  our  text-book.  As  one  more 
illustration,  more  commensurate  with  the  theme,  let  me 
ask,  What  is  the  use  to-day  of  reading  Gibbon,  the  decline 
and  fall  of  a  great  empire  ?  Of  supplementing  that  with  all 
that  can  be  known  of  the  early  times  of  Rome,  of  the  time 
when  it  was  a  dominant  force  on  the  earth?  Why,  the 
history  of  that  race  is  a  perpetual  storehouse  of  instruction 
for  statesmen,  for  politicians,  for  all  those  who  are  interested 
for  the  social  and  political  welfare  of  man.  So,  if  you  can 
give  us  a  complete  text-book  that  shall  teach  us  concerning 
the  origin  of  a  great  scheme  of  religious  thought  concern- 
ing God  and  man,  you  have  given  us  a  book  that  at  all  times 
shall  act  as  warning,  as  instruction,  as  inspiration,  as  light, 
as  guidance.  And  so  the  Bible,  being  the  completest  biogra- 
phy of  the  religious  life  of  a  race,  must  always,  in  the  thought 
of  any  intelligent  and  serious  man,  occupy  a  unique  and 
wonderful  position,  and  maintain  its  influence  as  light  and 
guidance  for  centuries. 

Is  there  to  be  a  loss  of  reverence  and  real  religiousness  in 


Present  Use  and  Worth.  189 

the  world  springing  out  of  and  flowing  from  this  change  ?  I 
cannot  believe  it.  It  used  to  be  supposed,  and  it  was  taught 
for  ages,  that  it  was  impossible  to  train  and  maintain  a  spirit 
of  loyalty  on  the  part  of  a  people,  unless  there  was  a  visible 
symbol  of  that  loyalty  in  king  and  sceptre  and  throne.  And 
thousands  of  well-meaning  men  have  fought  for  monarchy, 
because  they  believed  that  these  outward  and  visible  symbols 
were  necessary  to  keep  alive  the  spirit  of  loyalty  and  devo- 
tion. But  have  we  not  proved  that  that  fear  was  vain  ?  Has 
there  ever  been  in  the  history  of  the  world  a  grander  devel- 
opment of  loyalty,  a  more  wide-spread  devotion  to  it,  a  more 
unselfish  outpouring  of  life  than  we  have  shown  without 
either  sceptre  or  throne  or  king  }  Have  we  not  learned,  as 
the  result  of  human  experience,  that  all  the  happiness  of 
man,  his  welfare,  his  prosperity,  are  bound  up  with  law-keep- 
ing and  with  order?  We  recognize  all  the  great  principles 
that  underlie  these  things.  And,  though  it  be  only  an  ideal, 
having  no  outward  embodiment  unless  it  be  in  a  flag,  still  we 
are  ready  to  pay  to  it  our  utmost  devotion  of  heart  and  life. 
And  so  I  believe  concerning  this  Bible.  Whatever  theory 
goes  up  or  down,  taken  as  a  fact,  religion  is  a  part  of  the 
experience  of  the  world,  it  is  the  tidal  wave  which  lifts  the 
aspiring  heart  of  man  toward  the  stars. 

It  is  the  result  of  human  experience.  And  this  demon- 
strates its  utility,  its  power,  its  grasp  on  the  heart  and  the 
brain  of  the  world ;  and,  on  the  basis  of  this,  we  may  expect 
it  will  forever  abide. 

The  Bible,  then,  may  be  left  to  hold  its  own  place.  The 
religiousness,  the  reverence,  the  loyalty,  the  love,  the  aspira- 
tion of  man  will  not  only  remain,  but  will  go  on,  and  grow 
and  broaden  till  they  become  not  only  parts,  but  the  very 
heart  and  soul,  of  all  that  is  noble  in  human  civilization. 


THE  ETERNAL  BIBLE. 


Whatever  theory  we  may  hold  concerning  the  universe 
of  which  we  are  a  part  and  in  which  we  live,  it  is  still  true 
that,  when  v/e  analyze  the  word  to  learn  its  most  abstract  and 
general  definition,  we  find  that  human  life  consists  of  a  series 
of  actions  and  reactions  between  the  individual  and  his 
environment.  You  will  find,  if  you  will  take  the  trouble  to 
think  it  out  more  particularly  than  I  have  time  to  illustrate 
it  this  morning,  that,  in  whatever  direction  you  start,  whether 
you  deal  with  man  in  his  social  relations,  as  a  business  man, 
as  an  artist,  or  what  not,  that  this  abstract  statement  which 
I  have  made  covers  the  entire  truth.  Life  consists  in  a 
series  of  actions  and  reactions  between  man  and  the  uni- 
verse. And  a  successful  life,  as  distinguished  from  any 
other  kind,  depends  entirely  upon  the  question  whether  man 
perceives  the  right  relations  in  which  he  ought  to  stand  to 
these  forces  and  powers  all  around  him  and  with  which  he 
deals.  The  commercial  man,  for  example,  if  he  rightly 
apprehends  the  problem  given  him  to  solve,  and  is  capable 
of  dealing  with  it,  will  be  a  successful  merchant.  The  law- 
yer, if  he  rightly  apprehends  the  points  of  the  case  given  him 
to  manage,  and  has  intelligence  and  force  to  mould  and 
shape  his  case  in  accordance  with  what  he  perceives,  will 
succeed.  And  so  in  any  other  department  of  human  life. 
And  this  right  relation,  or  the  perception  of  this  right  rela- 
tion, in  which  man  stands,  or  ought  to  stand,  to  the  forms 


The   Eternal  Bible.  191 

and  forces  of  the  universe  about  him,  is  what  we  mean  by 
the  word  "  truth."  If  you  will  analyze  it  carefully,  you  will 
find  that  truth  has  just  this  meaning  and  no  other.  A  truth 
of  thought  is  simply  my  way  of  stating  the  fact  that  the 
external  reality  with  which  I  am  dealing  corresponds  to  the 
thought  that  I  have  already  in  my  brain.  If,  for  example, 
I  take  a  flower  in  my  hand,  it  impresses  me  as  possessing 
a  certain  shape,  a  certain  color,  a  certain  fragrance.  If  my 
perception  is  correct, —  that  is,  if  I  see  the  real  relation 
between  that  flower  and  my  brain, —  I  see  the  truth  concern- 
ing it.  The  truth,  then,  in  any  direction,  so  far  as  man's 
thought  is  concerned,  is  only  the  establishment  of  perfect 
correspondence  between  the  thought  and  the  thing.  A  prac- 
tical truth,  as  apart  from  this  abstract  truth,  is  simply  a  per- 
ception and  establishment  of  right  relations  between  man's 
active  faculties  and  the  external  world  with  which  he  deals. 
Now,  how  does  man  discover  this  truth  ?  Is  there  more 
than  one  way  ?  I  believe  that  truth  always,  everywhere,  in 
all  cases,  has  been  discovered,  is  being  discovered  to-day, 
and  must  be  discovered  forever,  through  the  process  of 
human  experience ;  for  truth  pertains  to  the  nature  of 
things.  It  is  a  part  of  our  life,  of  the  relationship  in  which 
we  stand  to  the  forms  and  forces  of  the  universe  about  us. 
To  talk  of  truth  away  off  somewhere  in  the  depths  of  the 
universe,  that  does  not  touch  us,  that  does  not  come  into 
relation  with  us  in  any  way,  that  has  nothing  to  do  practi- 
cally with  our  life  or  thinking,  is  to  talk  of  nothing.  There 
is  no  truth  for  man  apart  from  this  truth  of  perception  and 
practical  relationship  in  which  he  stands  to  the  life  of  things 
around  him.  Men  talk  of  truth  as  if  it  were  a  sort  of  entity 
stored  up  somewhere  outside  of  the  world,  that  could  be 
injected  into  it  from  without,  as  if  it  were  something  outside 
of  the   nature   of  things   that   could  be   given   to  men,  as. 


192  Beliefs   about  the   Bible. 

though  it  were  a  commodity  placed  in  their  hands,  as  though 
it  were  a  light  that  could  be  shed  abroad  over  the  earth  from 
outside,  as  though  it  were  a  series  of  propositions  that 
could  be  put  into  men's  brains  and  hearts  from  some  exter- 
nal source. 

If  I  have  made  you  apprehend  clearly  the  very  abstract 
thought  with  which  I  began,  that  truth  is  simply  a  part  of 
the  nature  of  things,  that  't  consists  essentially  in  the 
relation  in  which  we  stand  to  the  forms  and  forces  that 
are  around  us,  you  will  see  the  absurdity  of  supposing  that 
either  God  or  man  could  bring  truth  from  the  outside,  and 
put  it  into  the  universe  or  into  human  life.  The  'only  way  by 
which  men  ever  did  apprehend  or  ever  can  apprehend  truth 
is  as  the  result  of  their  own  experience  in  dealing  with  these 
forms  and  forces  with  which  we  come  into  relation  day  by 
day,  year  after  year,  and  age  after  age. 

Truth,  then,  always  and  everywhere,  is  the  result  of 
human  experience.  There  is  no  other  method  by  which  we 
can  possibly  come  into  possession  of  it.  The  amount  of 
truth  which  any  race,  any  people,  will  possess  at  any  given 
stage  of  their  experience  or  progress,  will  depend,  of  course, 
upon  the  character  of  that  people,  upon  their  intelligence, 
and  upon  the  range  of  their  experience.  It  is  also  true,  in 
every  race  and  in  every  period  of  the  world's  history,  that 
there  is  some  one  man  or  a  group  of  men  or  a  few  men 
scattered  here  and  there,  who  possess  a  clearer  insight,  a 
keener  perception,  a  broader  power  of  generalization,  than  is 
possessed  by  the  common  mass  of  busy  people  engaged  in 
the  practical  concerns  of  life.  And  these  keener,  more 
thoughtful  men,  those  that  have  the  clearer  insight,  what  will 
they  do?  They  will  not  be  able  to  discover  or  formulate 
any  truth  that  has  not  been  experienced  by  the  race  to 
which  they  belong,  but  they  will  be  able  to  see  more  clearly 


The   Eternal  Bible,  1 93 

that  which  others  dimly  feel.  They  will  be  able  to  interpret 
in  language  that  which  the  mass  of  the  people  have  partially 
apprehended,  but  to  which  they  have  never  been  able  to 
give  expression.  Just  as  you  say,  when  you  are  listening 
to  a  man,  "He  is  giving  expression  to  what  I  have  been 
feeling  after,  and  half-perceived,  for  years,  but  have  never 
been  able  to  put  into  words  " ;  so  precisely  these  seers,  these 
prophets,  these  leading  men  of  the  world,  are  able  to 
condense,  to  crystallize,  so  to  speak,  to  give  outline  and 
form  and  expression  to  that  which  the  mass  of  their  fellow- 
men  have  experienced  and  dimly  felt.  And  because  this 
truth  that  the  seers  of  the  world  have  perceived  and 
expressed  seems  to  the  mass  of  the  people  so  wonderful, 
so  much  above  what  they  themselves  feel  capable  of  saying 
or  clearly  apprehending  or  expressing,  we  find  —  and  this  is 
true  all  over  the  world,  in  every  clime,  among  every  people 
—  that,  when  these  truths  of  human  experience  have  thus 
been  formulated  and  expressed,  the  mass  of  the  people  have 
looked  upon  them  with  so  much  wonder  and  reverence  that 
they  have  come  to  believe  that  they  are  a  divine  revelation, 
something  let  down  from  above,  something  coming  out  of 
the  sky.  They  have  not  been  able  to  understand  that  such 
marvellous  truths  concerning  the  universe  and  human  life, 
such  wonderful  speculations  concerning  God  and  the  future, 
could  possibly  have  sprung  out  of  the  common  experience  of 
common  men.  So  they  have  told  themselves  stories  and 
invented  fairy  tales  of  how  these  seers  and  prophets  have 
had  special  ways  of  access  to  and  intercourse  with  teachers 
higher  than  human.  In  this  way  have  grown  up  stories  of 
divine  and  supernatural  revelations  of  systems  of  truth. 
In  each  case,  this  supposed  divine  and  supernatural  system 
has  only  been  the  fragment  of  truth  which  this  particular 
people,  up  to  this  particular  point  in  the  line  of  its  develop- 


194  Beliefs  about    the  Bible, 

ment,  has  experienced  or  been  able  to  put  into  formal 
expression. 

Two  or  three  results  which  have  been  repeated  over  and 
over  again  in  the  history  of  the  world  now  come  into  view. 
When  any  particular  people  has  made  up  its  mind  that  it  has 
received  from  the  gods,  or  their  god,  a  special,  supernatural 
revelation  of  truth,  then  what  t  Two  results  in  almost  every 
case  have  followed, —  results  perfectly  natural  and  springing 
out  of  the  circumstances  in  which  they  found  themselves 
placed.  They  have  received,  they  think,  a  divine,  super- 
natural revelation  of  truth.  The  next  step  is  that  they  per- 
suade themselves  that  they  have  all  the  truth  there  Is, —  all 
the  truth,  at  any  rate,  that  men  need  or  ever  will  need ;  and 
so  they  close  their  book,  their  Bible,  or  revelation,  and  say, 
Here,  we  have  a  sure  and  complete  compendium  of  divine 
truth  concerning  the  origin  of  this  universe,  of  nature,  of 
God,  his  purposes  toward  man,  and  all  that  pertains  to  the 
future  of  human  destiny.  The  Mohammedan  caliph  is  re- 
ported to  have  said  concerning  the  Alexandrian  Library :  "  If 
these  books  agree  with  the  Koran,  we  do  not  need  them ;  if 
not,  they  are  false.     So,  in  any  case,  let  them  be  destroyed." 

Along  with  this  there  always  comes  a  certain  spiritual 
pride,  a  certain  religious  self-conceit  j  and  the  people  fancy 
that  they  must  be  special  favorites  of  heaven, —  and  why 
not  ?  If  God  has  singled  me  out  from  all  the  thousands 
and  millions  of  the  world,  if  he  has  come  in  person  to  me, 
or  sent  a  special  messenger  to  me  to  tell  me  his  secret,  why 
should  I  not  feel  lifted  up  above  the  level  of  the  ordinary 
run  of  my  fellow-men  ?  If,  instead  of  its  being  one  person, 
it  is  a  race,  precisely  the  same  effect  will  follow ;  and  so  we 
do  find,  as  a  matter  of  history,  that  one  race  after  another, 
in  the  past,  has  fancied  that  it  has  received  this  divine  reve- 
lation, that  it  possesses  a  complete  system  of  eternal  truth ; 


The  Eternal  Bible,  1 95 

and,  as  the  next  step,  it  fancies  that  it  is  the  favorite  of  God, 
a  chosen  people,  set  apart,  selected  out  of  all  the  nations, 
and  made  the  depositary  of  the  divine  truth. 

And  then  what  ?  Another  natural  step  follows  upon  the 
heels  of  this.  One  of  two  things  this  people  will  do  in  such 
circumstances.  They  will  either  build  a  Chinese  wall  of 
exclusiveness  around  themselves,  and  look  over  the  rest 
of  the  world  and  down  upon  it  with  scorn  and  contempt, 
neglect  it,  fold  their  arms  in  a  sort  of  conceited  content,  and 
leave  it  to  go  its  own  way  to  destruction,  regarding  everybody 
but  their  own  people  as  outside  barbarians,  while  they  live  in 
the  centre  of  the  world  and  under  the  very  dome  of  heaven; 
or  else  they  will  regard  themselves  as  a  missionary  people, 
to  whom  this  truth  has  been  committed  and  upon  whom  has 
been  imposed  the  duty  of  bringing  all  the  rest  of  the  world, 
either  by  persuasion  or  force,  into  subjugation  to  their  ideas. 
We  find  that  different  religions  have  illustrated  both  types. 
Take  the  Chinese,  for  example.  They  occupy  the  Central 
Flowery  Kingdom,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  world  are  outside 
barbarians.  They  never  think  of  sending  out  missionaries. 
It  seems  to  them  a  matter  of  slight  importance  whether  the 
rest  possess  the  truth  or  not,  or  what  their  destiny  in  the 
future  may  be. 

On  the  other  hand,  take  the  Buddhists,  the  Christians, 
the  Mohammedans.  They  have  considered  themselves  as 
divinely  commissioned  to  proselyte  all  the  rest  of  the  world. 
They  have  sent  out  missionaries  to  compel  them  to  come  in. 
If  they  would  not  come  in  as  the  result  of  persuasion,  they 
felt  they  must  force  them ;  as  the  Mohammedans  wrote  their 
short  creed  —  Allah  is  Allah,  and  Mohammed  is  his  prophet 
—  on  the  point  of  the  sword  ;  thus,  if  in  no  other  way,  thrust- 
ing it  down  the  throat  or  into  the  hearts  of  their  enemies. 

Thus,  each  people  has  taken  its  fragment  of   truth,  and 


196  Beliefs   about  the  Bible. 

supposed  it  to  be  the  divine  and  complete  system  of  religion. 
It  has  written  its  Bible,  and  supposed  that  here  was  the 
closed  canon  of  the  revelation  of  God,  that  they  and  they 
alone  were  the  depositaries  of  eternal  truth.  This  belief 
could  very  easily  be  held  by  any  nation,  as  long  as  it  was 
isolated,  as  long  as  the  nations  knew  very  little  of  each 
other,  as  long  as  there  was  no  possibility  of  frequent  com- 
munication all  over  the  world.  It  is  only  within  fifty  years, 
perhaps,  that  some  of  these  great  systems  of  religion  have 
been  opened  up  to  the  thought  and  life  of  the  modern  world. 
As  long  as  each  people  stayed  at  home  and  knew  very  little 
about  its  neighbors,  it  could  very  comfortably  maintain  its 
self-conceit,  and  suppose  that  it  was  the  only  civilized  people, 
the  only  one  that  had  any  respectable  religious  ideas,  the 
only  one  that  had  any  noble  principles  of  ethics,  the  only 
one  that  had  ever  received  any  light  from  heaven  or  under- 
stood the  mysteries  of  God.  But  a  change  must  come  to 
any  state  like  this.  How  does  it  come?  As  I  have  indi- 
cated. The  one  source  of  truth  is  experience,  and  the  new 
movement  comes  as  the  result  of  deepened,  broadened, 
enlarged  human  experience.  These  nations  living  quietly 
by  themselves,  so  exclusive  in  their  selfish  content,  have  been 
compelled  to  become  acquainted  with  each  other. 

War  has  done  something  toward  this  larger  civilization. 
For,  when  nations  fight  with  each  other  and  come  into  the 
rough  shock  of  conflict,  they  learn  the  stuff  of  which  thb 
other  people  is  made;  and  there  comes  to  them  a  larger 
sympathy  of  humanity,  a  larger  feeling  of  the  common  ele- 
ments of  greatness,  a  larger  appreciation  of  the  fact  that 
they  are  not  the  only  people  in  the  world,  but  that  there  are 
others,  wise  and  mighty  and  strong  as  they. 

Commerce  has  done  more  even  than  war ;  for  it  has  cov- 
ered all  the  seas  with  ships,  and  men  have  gone  to  and  fro, 


The   Eternal  Bible,  197 

discovering  the  common  brotherhood  of  humanity,  finding 
similar  religious  and  intellectual  ideas,  similar  ethical  prin- 
ciples. They  have  brought  home  the  story;  and  so  these 
ideas  have  been  scattered  from  one  nation  to  another,  thus 
becoming  the  common  property  of  civilization. 

Discovery  and  scientific  investigation  have  done  something, 
for  they  have  sent  their  explorers  all  over  the  world  to  study 
the  history  of  these  alien  civilizations,  their  literature,  their 
religious  and  moral  ideas ;  and,  thus,  they  have  given  us  a 
grander  and  broader  conception  of  men,  nature,  and  life. 
So  these  various  influences  have  been  at  work,  and  men 
have  taken  a  higher  position  as  the  result  of  the  growing 
experience  of  the  world  and  of  human  life ;  and  this  growing 
experience  has  written  a  new  chapter  in  the  perception  of 
truth,  that  the  wise  and  thoughtful  of  all  the  world  may  read. 

What  has  been  the  result  ?  This  old  belief,  on  the  part  of 
these  separated  nationalities  and  religions,  that  they  had  all 
the  truth,  and  that  they  were  the  only  ones  that  had,  is 
passing  away.  It  has  become  impossible  for  an  intelligent 
man  any  longer  to  believe  it.  Two  grand  objections  face  us, 
—  and  either  one  of  them  is  strong  enough  to  overthrow  com- 
pletely this  theory, —  an  intellectual  objection  and  a  moral 
objection. 

The  intellectual  objection  I  have  already  hinted  and  partly 
outlined.  What  have  men  learned,  what  have  we  Chris- 
tians learned  concerning  some  of  the  other  religions  of  the 
world  ?  We  have  learned  that  our  experience  has  not  been 
unique,  but  that  it  has  been  the  universal  experience  of  the 
world.  We  have  learned  also  that  our  system  of  truth  is 
only  a  fragment  of  the  universal  truth.  We  have  learned 
that  other  people,  other  nations,  have  passed  through  similar 
experiences,  and  consequently  have  arrived  at  similar  con- 
clusions; that  they  have  discovered   similar  truths,  similar 


198  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

ideas  concerning  the  universe,  God,  and  man,  similar  prin- 
ciples of  morals,  or  ideas  of  right  and  wrong.  We  have 
learned  that  they  have  Bibles  of  their  own,  and  that  they 
think  they  came  by  divine  revelation,  as  we  have  thought 
ours  did ;  that  they  have  set  themselves  up  as  the  exclusive 
possessors  of  divine  truth,  just  as  we  have ;  that  they  have 
had  the  same  kind  of  conceit  that  we  have  had ;  that  they 
have  supposed  they  were  favorites  of  God,  as  we  have  sup- 
posed we  were ;  and  that  they  have  started  out  to  convert  the 
world,  just  as  we  have,  and  for  precisely  the  same  reasons. 
Furthermore,  we  have  found  that  they  have  just  as 'much 
reason  for  holding  these  opinions  as  we  have  had,  no  more 
and  no  less. 

What  is  the  next  step  ?  We  are  forced  to  the  conclusion 
that  one  of  two  things  is  true.  Either  there  were  half  a 
dozen  divine  revelations  and  half  a  dozen  infallible  Bibles, — 
in  which  case,  we  wonder  why  it  would  not  have  been  just  as 
well  to  give  one  universal,  complete  one  in  the  first  place ; 
or  to  the  conviction  that  there  is  not  any  universal  religion  in 
existence  or  any  universal  and  infallible  truth  or  any  infalli- 
ble Bible,  but  that  we  all  have  passed  through  similar  stages, 
and  by  similar  steps  of  human  experience  have  arrived  at 
similar  conclusions.  The  result  is  irresistible  that  the  truth 
we  have  reached  has  come  to  us  —  no  less  from  God  than  on 
the  other  theory  —  through  the  process  and  by  the  method  of 
our  human  experience  in  living  out  our  life  and  dealing  with 
these  great  principles  and  forces  of  the  universe  that  touch 
us  on  every  hand. 

The  moral  objection  is  quite  as  strong  as  the  intellectual 
one.  As  men  grow  wiser,  as  they  grow  better,  as  they  have 
a  larger  conception  of  human  brotherhood,  broader  ideas  of 
justice,  a  deeper  tliought  of  truth,  a  wider  sympathy  and 
more  care  for  human  welfare,  it  ceases  to  be  possible  for 


The   Eternal  Bible.  199 

them  to  believe  that  the  infinite  God  of  this  universe  cares 
any  more  about  one  part  of  his  children  than  he  does  about 
the  rest.  It  ceases  to  be  possible  for  man  with  a  grandly 
developed  and  sympathetic  moral  nature  to  feel  that  the  God 
of  the  whole  earth  is  capable  of  being  partial,  of  having  his 
pets,  of  selecting  either  individuals  or  nations  and  giving 
them  his  special  care,  and  leaving  all  the  rest  to  wander  in 
darkness,  or  fall  into  pits  of  destruction.  The  highest  and 
noblest  moral  natures  of  the  world  would  find  it  impossible 
to  worship,  or  even  to  respect,  a  God  who  was  capable  of 
a  partiality  like  that.  It  ceases  then  to  be  morally  possible 
for  men  to  hold  this  old  exclusive,  partial,  selfish  conception 
of  God,  of  religion,  of  the  Bible,  of  divine  and  infallible 
truth. 

What  then?  What  is  the  next  step  to  which  we  are 
forced }  This,  plain  and  inevitable :  a  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  these  separate  and  distinct  religions  are  only  parts 
of  the  universal  religion  yet  to  come;  that  these  separate 
and  closed  Biblical  canons  are  only  chapters  in  the  universal 
and  eternal  Bible,  as  yet  only  partially  written. 

I  want  now  to  note  two  main  characteristics  of  this  eternal 
Bible. 

In  the  first  place,  it  must  cover  and  include  all  truth  that 
touches  the  concerns  of  life  and  the  welfare  of  man.  In  the 
second  place,  it  must  be  forever  being  written  and  never 
done.  These  are  the  two  tests  by  which  you  may  judge  the 
universal  and  eternal  Bible  of  God. 

Religion  in  its  conception  as  it  has  hitherto  prevailed  in 
the  world  has  been  narrow.  It  has  concerned  itself  only 
with  a  little  fragment  of  human  life.  We  talk  about  religion 
and  business,  religion  and  politics,  religion  and  science,  relig- 
ion and  art,  religion  and  morality.  The  coming  grander  and 
truer    conception  of    religion   will,  of    necessity,   sweep   all 


200  Beliefs  about   the   Bible. 

these  particulars  under  its  one  grand  generalization.  A 
man  must  be  religious  in  business,  religious  in  politics,  relig- 
ious in  science,  religious  in  art,  religious  in  everything.  It 
must  be  the  quality  that  permeates  all  life,  the  atmosphere 
that  men  breathe  everywhere.  Religion  is  the  secret  of  the 
highest,  truest  life  of  man.  Religion  is  the  expression  we 
give  to  the  relation  in  which  we  stand  to  the  universe, —  that 
is,  to  God.  It  is  our  dealing  with  him.  It  is  our  dealing 
with  the  totality  of  life.  No  man  can  be  in  the  broadest  and 
truest  and  deepest  sense  of  the  word  religious,  except  as 
he  is  a  complete  man,  in  right  relations  to  all  the  forms  and 
forces  of  the  universe  about  him.  And,  if  he  is  a  complete 
and  true  man,  he  gives  utterance  to  the  truest  and  deepest 
conception  of  the  religious  life;  for  that  is  what  religion 
means. 

Religion,  then,  must  deal  with  the  physical  nature  of  man. 
And  here  is  one  particular  in  which  the  Old  Testament  is 
far  ahead  of  the  New.  Moses  places  sanitary  laws  side  by 
side  with  the  command  to  worship  one  God  and  no  more, 
making  one  of  equal  importance  with  the  other.  The  New 
Testament  throws  contempt  upon  this  world,  and  speaks 
slightingly  of  the  body,  "this  vile  body,"  "Bodily  exercise 
profiteth  little,"  etc.  It  is  sprinkled  all  over  with  passages 
expressing  contempt  for  this  world,  the  material  side  of 
things ;  and  yet  there  never  was  a  sane  or  true  religion  except 
as  it  based  itself  on  a  sound  and  healthy  physical  life.  We 
must  begin  with  our  religion  right  here.  Cleanliness  is  not 
next  to  godliness  merely.  It  is  a  part  of  godliness  ;  and  so 
is  every  other  sanitary  regulation  that  touches  the  welfare 
and  health  of  the  physical  man. 

This  eternal  Bible  must  go  over  the  whole  realm  of  truth. 
It  must  include  all  man's  social  relations,  all  political 
relations,  all  international  relations,  all  science,  all  art.     It 


The  Eternal  Bible.  201 

must  include  everything  that  touches  the  life  and  happiness 
of  man.  The  eternal  Bible,  then,  will  cover  and  include  all 
truth,  so  far  as  it  is  developed  and  wrought  out  as  the  result 
of  the  experience  of  the  world. 

I  said  that  its  second  characteristic  was  that  it  was  always 
being  written  and  never  finished.  This,  you  will  see,  springs 
naturally  out  of  the  principles  thus  far  developed.  Truth, 
as  far  as  it  appertains  to  the  welfare  of  man,  being  the 
result  of  human  experience,  developed  by  it,  presented  as 
the  result  of  it,  must  of  course  keep  step  with  human 
experience,  and  can  never  transcend  it,  so  that  humanity 
writes  a  new  sentence  in  its  Bible  with  every  new  step  of 
human  experience,  with  every  new  and  larger  contact  with 
the  universe  in  which  it  lives.  The  boy  has  the  truth  which 
pertains  to  the  boyish  nature;  but,  as  he  grows  up  and 
becomes  a  young  man,  he  comes  into  new  experiences,  which 
enlarge  and  broaden  his  ideas.  He  has  new  and  wider 
conceptions  of  life,  that  enable  him  to  live  the  true  life  of  a 
young  man.  The  middle-aged  man  and  the  old  man  come 
into  new  experiences  as  they  advance ;  and,  thus,  truth  keeps 
step  with  human  life. 

This  Bible,  then,  is  not  done.  It  never  will  be  done,  until 
the  last  thinking  being  is  weary  of  thought,  and  fallen  asleep. 

There  is  one  other  phase  of  my  subject,  carrying  it  on  and 
rounding  it  out,  that  I  wish  to  bring  to  your  thought,  and 
which  may  seem  somewhat  new  to  you,  put  in  just  the  way 
in  which  I  propose  to  state  it.  Is  there  any  reason  in  the 
nature  of  things  why  we  should  forever  look  at  God,  the 
universe,  the  great  truths  of  religion,  through  Hebrew  eyes 
and  none  other  ?  Let  us  be  glad  and  thankful  for  all  the 
Hebrews  saw.  Let  us  rejoice  for  the  depth  and  breadth 
of  their  religious  experience,  and  take  it  as  our  light  and 
guidance,  as  far  as  it  extends ;  but  is  there  any  reason  why 


202  Beliefs   about  the   Bible. 

Americans  should  not  come  into  contact,  first  hand,  with  the 
divine,  as  well  as  Hebrews,  Egyptians,  Buddhists,  and  Mo- 
hammedans ?  Is  it  not  the  same  God  above  us  ?  Are  not 
the  same  heavens  over  us  as  bright  with  stars  as  were  those 
that  shone  over  the  Judean  hills?  Are  there  not  now 
as  fair  flowers,  as  fresh  grasses,  as  those  from  which  Jesus 
drew  his  lessons  of  religion  and  life?  Are  not  as  noble 
hearts,  as  unselfish  devotion  manifested  to-day,  as  high  quali- 
ties of  manhood  and  womanhood  in  society  as  in  olden 
times  ?  Reversing  and  changing  the  purpose  of  those  ques- 
tions of  Shylock,  may  we  not  say  instead  :  Hath  not  an 
American  eyes  ?  Hath  not  an  American  a  heart,  brain,  soul, 
religious  faculties,  moral  perceptions,  as  well  as  a  Jew  or  a 
Buddhist  or  a  Mohammedan  ?  Do  we  not  stand  in  as  inti- 
mate and  close  relations  with  the  father-heart  of  God  in  the 
nineteenth  century  as  men  stood  five  hundred,  a  thousand, 
two,  three  thousand  years  ago  ?  Has  God  moved  farther 
off  ?  Are  the  heavens  more  distant  ?  Are  we  less  wise,  less 
capable  of  thinking,  less  capable  of  feeling  than  they  were 
in  the  olden  time  ? 

I  appeal  to  your  consciousness,  to  your  clearer  thought,  as 
to  what  are  the  ideals,  the  forces,  and  the  methods  that 
govern  your  own  life  to-day  ?  Are  you  not  guided  by  the 
Bible  of  the  ages  instead  of  the  Bible  of  the  Hebrews  and 
the  Christians  ?  What  are  the  doctrines,  the  ideas,  the  beliefs 
that  are  moulding  and  shaping  your  life  to-day  ?  They  are  a 
part  of  the  life  of  to-day  and  not  those  of  two  thousand  or 
five  thousand  years  ago. 

Where  is  our  book  of  Genesis  ?  It  is  not  in  the  Bible. 
The  book  of  Genesis  that  we  believe  in  and  that  we  are 
guided  by  was  written  by  Copernicus,  by  Galileo,  by  Newton, 
by  Laplace,  by  Lyell,  by  Spencer,  by  Darwin.  And,  if  we 
profess  to  believe  in  the  old  Genesis,  we  are  perpetually  re- 


The    Eternal  Bible.  203 

interpreting  and  retranslating  its  ideas,  so  that  they  shall 
echo  Copernicus  and  these  other  men.  Where  is  our  book 
of  the  Law  ?  Do  we  really  go  to  the  Pentateuch  to  find  out 
the  principles  by  which  we  shall  guide  and  govern  our  daily 
lives  ?  No.  We  go  to  those  men  and  to  a  hundred  others 
who  have  studied  for  us  and  laid  down  the  laws  of  this  actual 
universe  of  which  we  are  a  part.  We  go  to  men  like  Dr. 
Carpenter,  of  London,  to  find  out  how  this  marvellous  body 
of  ours  is  made.  Servetus  and  Harvey  wrote  some  sentences 
in  this  wondrous  book  of  the  Law.  Ferrier  in  his  studies 
of  the  brain,  Bain  and  his  co-workers  and  compeers  in  out- 
lining the  marvellous  nature  and  functions  of  our  nervous 
system, —  these  men  who  have  studied  the  real  laws  of  the 
universe  and  human  life,  and  have  written  them  for  us,  they, 
not  the  Pentateuch,  are  the  real  book  of  the  Law  by  which 
the  modern  world  is  being  guided,  whatever  men  may  say  or 
profess  about  it.  Where  are  our  divine  histories,  those  that 
really  move  and  control  the  world  ?  They  are  not  the  Kings, 
Samuel,  Judges,  and  the  Chronicles  of  the  Old  Testament. 
They  are  the  histories  of  Greece,  of  Rome,  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  of  Germany,  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  modern  civ- 
ilization. Green's  history  of  the  English  people,  Bancroft's 
history  of  America,  all  those  that  have  given  us  the  sources 
of  that  stream  of  national  life  of  which  we  are  a  part. 
These  are  the  histories  that  are  moving  the  modem  world. 

Who  are  our  heroes  ?  Are  they  any  longer  Samuel,  Jeph- 
thah,  Gideon,  and  David,  and  the  grand  names  of  the  old 
book  that  are  a  part  of  our  childhood  thought  ?  No  :  they 
are  the  men  that  have  fought  for  truth  and  for  freedom  and 
for  human  advancement.  Our  heroes  are  Winkelried,  the 
barons  that  met  King  John  at  Runnymede,  Cromwell  of  the 
Commonwealth,  that  grand  group  allied  to  Washington  that 
figured  in  our  Revolution,  other  men  like  Lincoln  and  Gar- 


204  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

rison,  men  that  have  stood  for  truth  and  human  right 
These  are  the  heroes  that  shine  like  stars  in  our  moral  and 
intellectual  firmament,  that  give  us  the  light  by  which  we  are 
guided  and  the  inspiration  for  our  every-day  life. 

Where  are  our  ideal  women?  Are  they  Miriam  and 
Deborah  and  Ruth  and  Esther  and  Mary  and  Dorcas,  those 
that  are  simply  names  to  us  in  the  olden  book  ?  Are  they 
not  rather  Mary  Carpenter  and  Florence  Nightingale  and 
Frances  Power  Cobbe  and  Marian  Evans  of  England, 
Lucretia  Mott,  Elizabeth  Thompson,  Mary  A.  Livermore, 
and  a  hundred  others  I  might  name,  that  are  making  and 
shaping  the  life  of  these  modern  times  ?  If  women  like  these 
had  lived  in  the  ancient  days,  they  would  have  towered  so 
much  above  the  noblest  of  them  all  that  either  they  would 
have  been  persecuted  and  put  to  death  as  ahead  of  their  time, 
or  idealized  and  worshipped  as  divine. 

Who  are  the  prophets  and  seers  that  lead  and  inspire 
us  now  ?  They  will  still  continue  to  be  in  part  those  who 
have  written  the  noble,  burning  words  that  have  led  on  the 
world  for  so  many  centuries ;  but  added  to  these  are  all  the 
great  religious  leaders, —  Zoroaster,  Gautama,  Confucius, 
Socrates, —  the  great  men  of  more  recent  times, —  Savon- 
arola, Wickliff,  Luther,  Wesley,  Swedenborg,  Channing, 
Theodore  Parker,  these  great  seers,  utterers  of  divine 
truth,  those  that  have  lifted  up  and  led  on  the  life  of  the 
world. 

And  what  are  really  the  Gospels  that  fire  us,  that  come  to 
us  whispering  their  good  news  ?  They  are  in  part  those  that 
have  been  written  in  the  days  of  old.  They  include  the 
Gospels  of  our  New  Testament,  the  light  and  life  that  came 
through  Jesus  of  Nazareth ;  but  they  include  also  those 
other  flashes  of  light  that  have  come  out  of  the  inner  heav- 
ens of  human  thought  and  life,  and  are  streaming  out  of 


The  Eternal  Bible.  205 

them  still.  They  are  to  be  found  very  largely  in  the  ranks 
of  those  men  that  have  been  thought  to  be  opposed  to 
gospel  and  to  God,  in  the  ranks  of  men  doing  the  work  of 
science.  These  are  bringing  to  us  the  good  news  that 
man  is  mighty,  that  there  are  secret  forces  and  powers  in 
this  universe  that  man  can  discover,  that  he  can  harness  as 
his  servants  and  compel  to  do  his  work.  They  are  discov- 
ering that  man  may  control  and  mould  all  the  forces  of 
the  universe  around  him,  and  lift  himself  up  from  drudgery 
and  slavery  to  that  nature  that  has  dominated  him  so  long. 

Where  are  the  apocalypses,  those  that  unfold  the  future  and 
teach  us  what  it  is  that  is  coming  ?  They  are  not  like  that 
wonderful  phantasmagorical  dream  of  John  that  closes  the 
New  Testament.  They  are  again  these  same  men  of  science ; 
for,  as  Patrick  Henry  said,  there  is  no  way  of  foretelling  the 
future  except  by  the  past.  And  it  is  the  study  of  this  past, 
the  study  of  the  principles  that  underlie  and  control  the 
development  of  civilization  up  to  this  hour,  that  are  indicating 
the  possibilities  of  future  growth  and  progress.  And,  look- 
ing along  the  line  of  these  up  the  ages,  by  a  faith  that  is  not 
credulity,  a  faith  forever  springing  out  of  human  experience, 
a  faith  based  in  the  nature  of  things,  we  see  man  sceptred 
and  crowned  controlling  the  world,  with  its  forces  at  his  feet, 
its  mightiest  powers  his  ministers,  himself  master  henceforth 
of  the  world  and  of  his  destiny. 

These,  then,  I  say,  are  the  real  chapters  of  the  eternal 
Bible  that  are  being  written  age  after  age  as  the  result  of 
human  discovery  and  experience, —  a  Bible  not  yet  complete, 
a  Bible  in  which  each  new  truth  is  a  sentence,  and  each  new 
grand  discovery  a  chapter  or  a  book,  and  that  shall  go  on 
being  written  by  the  finger  of  God  in  human  life  forever. 
And,  as  it  progresses,  it  shall  cease  to  be  a  book  whose  every 
page  is  blood-spattered,  as  were  the  Old  Testament  books  of 


2o6  Beliefs  about  the  Bible. 

the  past.  No  longer  shall  its  pages  be  defaced  with  so 
copious  a  rain  of  human  tears.  It  shall  not  be  so  largely- 
made  up  of  groans  at  the  world's  injustice  or  with  human 
cries  for  help.  For  the  time  shall  come,  it  is  coming  pro- 
gressively, when  this  truth  of  God  shall  be  more  and  more 
written  in  the  hearts  and  lives  of  men,  and  when  it  shall  be 
no  longer  necessary  to  say  to  one  another,  know  thou  the 
Lord,  know  thou  the  truth,  know  thou  the  perfect  relig- 
ious life  ;  for  all  shall  know  and  live  in  the  harmony  of  this 
truth  and  life  the  wide  world  over  forevermore. 


ov 


A.R  Y 


Ss^^^ 


OF  C/vtVf^ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


....  .  o  1954  HI 


t       REC'D  LD 

0. 


^ 


'^i^^^^ii^^'Mi^ 


